


Unlucky Ace

by MissAnnThropic



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAnnThropic/pseuds/MissAnnThropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hale brings her boyfriend home to meet the family, and there is something absolutely terrifying about the Hales.  AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> General warning: I will not tag to your satisfaction. I think tagging is out of control, and I will not tag a fic to the point of spoiling what happens in a fic. I’m an old-school reader who believes the story should be able to surprise you. If that’s a deal-breaker for you, turn back now.
> 
> Cross-posting: I do not consent to have my fics posted to other websites (such a Goodreads) by anyone besides myself.

“You know, if you really wanted to do me a favor, you could say something reassuring. Like how your family’s going to love me or that they’re not that bad.”

Kaycen ‘Ace’ Thoreau was something of a BMOC at Stanford University. He was on the football team, actually _not_ a dumbshit meathead jock (he got into Stanford on an academic scholarship), and he was dating one of the hottest girls at Stanford, Laura Hale. He had a lot to be confident about and he knew it, but at that moment he felt like anything but the cock of the walk.

Because spring break was upon them, and they were going home to Laura’s hometown of Beacon Hills and Ace would meet her parents for the first time.

He wasn’t too proud to admit he was intimidated as fuck. There was something about Laura that just set her apart from everyone else. She had a spark of _something_ , a deadly grace to her every move. It reminded Ace of a ninja woman in a Tarantino film. Or a jungle cat that would kill you before you even knew you were being followed. Ace had always found it sexy, but now he was scared she’d inherited that panther-like power from her parents.

Whom he was going to meet in two days’ time.

Laura turned from her dorm room closet with four shirts in hand and gave Ace a look. It was _not_ reassuring. “I could do that… it’d be a lie, though.”

Ace gulped. “Just promise they won’t kill me.”

Laura said nothing.

“Oh my god,” Ace jumped off Laura’s bed, “ _seriously_?”

“They _probably_ won’t. I’d caution against any sudden movements, though.”

Ace gaped at her as she carried her shirts to the suitcase open on her bed. “Laura, _please_ tell me you’re joking.”

Laura gave him a wicked smirk. “Mostly.”

“Not helping!”

Laura barked a laugh, tossing her dark hair in the process. “I’m sorry, Ace… but you should see your face.”

Ace scowled.

Laura stepped in and gave him a quick kiss. “Listen, the truth is my family’s… intense.”

“What do you mean ‘intense’?”

“I mean intense. I’d like to lull you into a sense of security about this week, but it would be a false one. I’m telling you upfront that my family can be kind of scary. I mean, I’m used to it, but outsiders can get kind of overwhelmed.”

Ace swallowed nervously. “You make them sound like serial killers.”

Laura looped her arms around his neck. “Definitely not. Though the town has its rumor mill…”

Ace dropped his head to bury his face in her hair with a groan.

Laura smoothed her hands over his shoulders. “You’re the first boyfriend I’ve ever brought home to them, if that makes a difference. You’re the first one I thought was strong enough to face them.”

“Good to know you think so highly of me.”

“I do.” Laura pulled back to look him in the eye, her hazel-green gaze penetrating. “And they know how I feel about you. I promise they’re not going to chase you out of town, nothing that drastic, but you should just brace yourself right now to be put through the gauntlet. My parents are pretty protective. And don’t even get me started on my brother…”

“Is it too late to just back out of this whole thing? I mean, I don’t really have to meet them, do I? I can be your mystery man. Isn’t that kind of romantic?”

Laura swatted him on the shoulder and turned back to her packing. “At this point, backing out would be a mistake. It’ll look like weakness.”

“Geez, Laura, is your family in the mafia?”

Laura snorted. “Kind of feels like it sometimes. It’s big like a mob family. I have a lot of aunts and uncles.”

“Who will probably all want a chance to put me in the thumbscrews and ask me about my intentions toward you.”

“Now you’re catching on.” Laura smiled at Ace, blinding and gorgeous.

“Damnit,” Ace sagged. “I almost kind of hate that you’re worth it.”

Laura turned, gave a smart, “Damn right I am,” and pulled him into a kiss.

Ace returned the kiss before drawing back enough to study her face, running his fingers through her dark hair. “My _Hale_ n of Troy,” he teased lovingly.

Laura blushed. “I’m not asking you to launch a thousand ships here… just survive a week with my family.”

“I think I’d rather launch the ships. It would probably be easier.”

“You’re probably right.”

*********

Beacon Hills was about a four hour drive from Palo Alto, which was plenty of time for Ace to work himself up to a near panic.

“Would you relax?” Laura freed one hand from the steering wheel to cover his where he was clutching his thighs in a death-grip. “I can hear your heart from here.”

He didn’t doubt it. It felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. “Would you think less of me as a man if I told you I was terrified right now?”

“Of course not.”

“Okay, I’m terrified.”

Laura gave him a sympathetic look.

“What if they hate me? What if they think you can do better?”

Laura lifted one eyebrow imperiously. “Better? You got a full ride to Stanford and you’re one of the team’s star players.”

“ _So_? They’re probably expecting you to snag an actor or an English nobleman studying aboard. You could be a princess!”

Laura laughed. “Ace, baby… can you picture _anyone_ less likely to be a princess than me?”

“There are kickass princesses, too,” he muttered sullenly. He’d seen the recent Disney movies (though he would _lie his ass off_ and say he hadn’t).

Laura patted his hand and resumed her 10 and 2 grip on the steering wheel. “The day you met me, I was breaking up a fight between two Great Danes at an adoption fair for the animal shelter. I’d hardly call that ladylike.”

“Yeah,” Ace smiled softly at the memory. Laura had been wearing cut-off shorts that showed off miles of tan legs and an animal shelter volunteer t-shirt. The Danes, one black and the other harlequin, had easily outweighed Laura twice-over. Not that it had made her so much as hesitate to jump into the fray when the two dogs went at each other. “I was sure you were about to get ripped to pieces, then you just shut those dogs down… I _still_ don’t know how you did that. It was like you beastmastered those giants. You were so hot. It’s giving me a boner just thinking about it.”

Laura snorted. “Better get that under control before we get to my parents’ house.”

Well, if anything was going to be a boner-killer…

“My point is, I’d rather have you than some snobbish aristocrat.”

“Now who’s being sappy?” Ace asked playfully.

“Don’t make me pull this car over so I can manhandle you to prove my dominance.”

Ace chuckled. “First of all, we were trying to _discourage_ my boner, and that is _not_ the way to do it. Second, your freakish strength is not in question. And lastly, Laura, sweetie… there is no question who’s the boss in this relationship.”

Laura’s lips twitched in a smile. “Who would have thought the big-shot football player would have such a thing for take-charge women?”

“ _No one_. That’s why all my past girlfriends combined still don’t hold a candle to you.”

“Oh, it’s you! You want to know who the sap in this car is? So you!”

Ace laughed. “Fine, it’s me.” He found himself lost watching her face. “I love you.”

Laura’s mocking air vanished and she smiled, genuine and warm. “I love you, too.”

The banter had momentarily distracted Ace from the dread he felt, but as soon as silence fell in the car his anxiety returned.

“A little piece of advice… if you want to win points with my family, you should probably work into the conversation somehow that I’m the alpha of this relationship.”

Ace gave her a puzzled look. “Umm… okay? You think that’s going to matter to them?”

“ _Definitely_.” She gave him a quick look. “Trust me… it’s a Hale thing.”

Maybe her parents were uber-feminists and inordinately worried she was being cowed by a man. Although if they thought there was a chance in hell Laura Hale could be cowed by _anyone_ , they didn’t know their daughter. Still, he’d do whatever it took to win favor with Laura’s parents.

“Okay, I can do that. Definitely.” He was not ashamed of the fact Laura was the dominant one in their relationship. It was one of the things he loved about her. Screw gender stereotypes – popular jocks could like having their girl take the reins, too. “Any other useful tips?”

Laura thought about that a minute. “You’re on your own with my parents… you’ll just have to make them believe you think the world of me. How will you ever manage?” She winked at him. Then her smile slipped. “My brother…” she paused a moment, deliberating. “Okay, so… he’s been bisexual since forever, but he was in denial about it for a long time. I don’t really know why. My family doesn’t care about that kind of stuff. None of us would have given him a hard time about liking girls _and_ boys. But it was a huge deal for him, for whatever unfathomable reason. I think he might have gone his whole life pretending he wasn’t into guys just as much as chicks, but he met someone. A guy. And he’s…” Laura smiled fondly. “He is _so_ gone on him. I’d call it cute, but it’s almost sickening, really.” She seemed to get lost a moment in being happy for her brother before she shook herself and got back on topic. “So he’s out now, and he has a boyfriend, but he’s _freshly out_ , if that’s a thing, so he’s still kind of touchy about it. So if you could go out of your way to make him comfortable with his sexuality…”

“I’m not kissing him.”

Laura laughed.

“I told you,” Ace continued, “Tyler was a _fluke_. That one exception to the rule. I mean, the guy was an _Adonis_. Half the football team would have made an exception for him. I think a quarter of the team _did_.”

Laura reached over and carded her fingers through Ace’s hair. “One – do _not_ kiss my brother, his boyfriend would hate you. Two – you know I love that you can be so cool about making out with a guy. Not while I’m dating you, of course, but as a matter of principle. I couldn’t be with you if you were a homophobe.”

“Love is love, babe,” Ace reached up to capture Laura’s hand and kiss her knuckles. She rolled her eyes but touched her thumb tenderly to his bottom lip before returning her hand to the wheel.

Ace grinned. “All right, so… bond with your brother over the guy I made out with in high school, let your parents know you’re the top dog…”

Laura burst into hysterical laughter.

“Why is that so funny?” Ace asked.

Laura struggled to get control of herself. “It just _is_ … my god, you don’t even _know_.”

“I’m starting to think it’ll be a miracle if I make it through this week without being eaten alive.”

The wolfish grin Laura sent his way did not help allay his fears.

*********

It was around one in the afternoon when they hit Beacon Hills and Laura turned off the main street, following an unpaved road into the woods. Ace felt his nerves ratchet up again. “Your parents live in the middle of the woods?”

“Yup. Why, is that a problem?”

“Nooo… just, how many horror movies involve a cabin in the woods?”

Laura snickered. “I won’t let the scary monsters get you, baby.”

“You better not. And for the record, I’m counting your parents among those ‘scary monsters’.”

She beamed at him. “So was I.”

Ace groaned. “ _Laura_. You think you’re helping with the jokes, but you’re really not.”

“Who said I was joking?” 

Ace paled.

Laura chuckled, reached over, and took his hand. “Hey, calm down. It’s going to be fine. I’m not going to lie and say my family isn’t scary sometimes, because they are, but honestly, they just want to make sure you’re worthy. Think of it as a hero’s quest.”

“Just promise me I won’t have to slay any dragons,” Ace grumbled.

“I can definitely promise no dragons.”

Ace took a deep breath and squeezed Laura’s hand. 

That was all the time he got to brace himself, because they turned a bend in the winding road and a huge house came into view. Given its location, it might as well be a three-story gothic mansion.

“Whoa…”

“Told you, big family,” Laura pulled her hand free to manage pulling up alongside a black Camaro and parking.

“Yeah, but you said a lot of that was aunts and uncles.”

“It is. The Hale clan’s pretty close; all my aunts and uncles have a room in the house.”

“They all live here?” Talk about peculiar.

“No, but they do stay over a lot. And since they knew I was bringing you home this week, I’m sure the place will be packed soon, if it’s not already.” She gave him a smile. “Ready?”

“Can I say no?”

Laura leaned over to give him a quick kiss. “Nope. Get your ass out of the car, Thoreau, before I Thoreau it out.”

Ace rolled his eyes. “Your puns are painful, Laura. Literally, they _pain_ me.”

Laura chuckled and got out of the car.

Taking a deep breath, Ace followed.

He approached the house at Laura’s side, staring up at it like it was a cursed castle waiting to devour him. He felt like asking Laura if she was _sure_ there were no dragons. There was something about the place that made his hairs stand on end. He’d done ‘meet the parents’ before, and it had never felt like this. He felt like a baby deer walking into a lion’s den.

The front door opened and Ace couldn’t help a tiny squeak.

Laura took his hand and squeezed.

Two men stepped out of the house, one broad and dark and giving off _predator_ vibes like nobody’s business. The other was lean, less scowly than tall-dark-and-handsome, but a glint in his eye told Ace he’d met his intellectual match… if not his superior. Together, both men stepped off the porch and stood facing Laura and her suitor.

Laura broke from Ace’s side and rushed at the two men. “Dad!” she exclaimed and launched herself into the first man’s arms. He folded her in a hug while giving Ace a beady look over his daughter’s shoulder.

The second man cleared his throat. “What am I, chopped liver?”

Laura laughed and swung from one man’s embrace to the other like a monkey swinging from tree to tree. Dark and scary seemed reluctant to let her go.

The lean man squeezed Laura tightly. “So good to have you home, Laura.” He glanced meaningfully at Ace. “And I see you brought dinner.”

Ace’s eyes widened.

Laura stepped out of the man’s arms. “Pop, don’t. He’s already freaked out as it is.”

“Good,” dark and scary intoned.

Lean and quick smacked his companion on the arm. “Be nice, Derek.”

Laura beckoned Ace forward. He stepped closer numbly, not even sure how he covered the distance.

“Ace, these are my dads, Derek and Stiles Hale. Dad, Pop, this is my boyfriend, Kaycen Thoreau.”

Ace’s jaw dropped. “Your…” He swallowed his tongue before he could blurt out the first thought that raced through his mind.

Dark and scary, Derek, glowered.

Lean and quick, Stiles, grinned and looked toward his daughter. “You didn’t tell him.” He looked amused by the blunder.

Laura’s eyes went wide and she covered her mouth. “Oh! I… I thought I did. I guess I didn’t?” she looked at Ace questioningly.

Ace shook his head. No, he definitely would have remembered Laura mentioning _this_.

Laura winced. “Um… whoops?”

Ace couldn’t help but chuckle. It wasn’t often Laura was caught flat-footed. It was kind of adorable, like watching a jaguar startle when it caught sight of itself in a mirror. He held out his hand. “Mr. and Mr. Hale, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Derek eyed the hand like it was covered in feces, but Stiles reached out to shake it. “Just call us Stiles and Derek, it’ll save everyone a lot of confusion.” Stiles released Ace’s hand and nudged Derek in the side. “Derek…”

With a huff, Derek shook Ace’s hand a little too firmly to be polite.

Ace turned a wince into an awkward smile.

“So,” Stiles draped one arm over his daughter’s shoulders, casual but unmistakably protective. “You go by ‘Ace’?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m not really a fan of ‘Kaycen’. My parents had me in the middle of that huge Aiden-Brayden-Jayden-Kayden fad and wanted to mix it up. They should not be allowed to name things. Our dog’s name is Oleander.”

Stiles laughed.

Derek lifted one eyebrow at his husband. “I don’t think you have room to make fun of anyone’s name, _Stiles_.”

“Fair enough, fair enough. Honestly, I would have been happy with a name like ‘Kaycen’.” Stiles nodded at Ace. “Stiles is a nickname because my real name should be banned by the Geneva Conventions. I feel like me and Arnold Schwarzenegger share a special bond; I’m sure we were both the only kids in our kindergarten classes crying trying to spell our names.”

Ace ventured a smile.

“Where’s Aaron?” Laura asked, looking around.

“He’s out with Sam. I told him he could have lunch with his boyfriend, but we expect him home for dinner with the family.”

“Speaking of which… who all will be coming?”

Stiles’ grin looked almost wicked. “ _Everyone_.”

Ace looked from Laura and Stiles over to Derek, who actually looked delighted the way an evil supervillain in a movie would. Like the victim had walked right into his trap.

Yep… he’d be lucky to make it out of this week with his flesh still on his bones.


	2. Chapter 2

“Holy _crap_ ,” Ace exploded the minute he and Laura were behind the closed door of her bedroom, “your dad is _terrifying_.”

Laura grinned. “I _did_ warn you. And if you think you can let your guard down around Pop, think again. He might not be as scary as Dad on the outside, but he will take you apart and put you back together intellectually. I’ve seen him reduce people to tears. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, after Aunt Lydia.”

Ace moved as though to face-plant on the bed then thought better of it, like the Hales would just _know_ he had lain on their daughter’s bed. It felt like a foolish reason to get castrated, and only an hour into his visit, too. He’d be damned if he didn’t do better than that on his hero quest to win Laura Hale.

Instead, he turned a slow circle to take in Laura’s room. It felt like a peek into her world. The walls were painted a rich hunter green, the trim accented with swatches of fall colors (red and gold), and covered in family photos. It was a stark contrast to her dorm room, institutional white and barren of family pictures.

“So I get now why me being a homophobe would be such a deal-breaker for you,” Ace mused aloud.

Laura frowned. “Well, beside the common decency factor… yeah.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry to spring that on you. I _really_ thought I told you.”

“Babe, I don’t know if you know this, but you play your cards close to the chest.”

Laura paused. “It’s hard to know who you can trust.”

He stepped toward her and rested his hands on her waist. “You can trust me.”

“I know I can. I _meant_ to tell you. I guess not telling people about my family is just such a habit that I… forgot.”

“You make them sound like they’re in the witness protection program.”

Laura leaned into Ace, folding against his chest. “Nothing like that. Just… something horrible happened to my dad. It was before I was born, but… let’s just say it had an impact on how they raised us.”

“And why they’re so protective of you?”

Laura nodded against his shoulder.

Ace encircled his arms more completely around her. It might have happened before Laura was born, but she clearly felt the pain of her father having once suffered. More than anything, he wanted to shield her from it, and he gathered her closer. Laura hummed and snuggled against him.

There was a knock on the door and seconds later Stiles poked his head in. “All right, you two, break it up.”

Laura snorted and stepped back from Ace. “Pop, I’m _twenty-one_.”

“Hi, Twenty-One, I’m Stiles.”

Laura groaned. “Oh my god, _stop_ with the horrible dad jokes, _please_. You’re better than that. Seriously, why would you stoop that low?”

“Sorry, kiddo, it’s in the job description.”

“Dad doesn’t make those lame jokes.”

“That’s because your father’s funny bone is lodged up his ass.”

Laura cackled.

Ace knew his face twisted mightily at the innuendo of bones in asses, especially in reference to a couple of gay men, but he could not comment on it. A joke was right there waiting to be cracked, but he _could not_ let it fly. These weren’t his buddies on the football team, these were Laura’s _parents_.

Stiles caught the look on his face and something mischievous gleamed in his eye. “I applaud your restraint. I couldn’t have held my tongue on that one when I was your age.”

“It is… hard,” Ace mumbled.

Laura looked scandalized.

Stiles threw back his head and laughed. “Erica is going to _love_ you.”

Laura shoved Ace in the shoulder. “If you two are going to throw around thinly-veiled references to my dads’ _sex life_ you can just get out.”

“I was coming to show him to the guestroom anyway,” Stiles said when he got his laughter in check.

“Pop… _twenty-one_ ,” Laura stressed again.

Stiles just lifted his eyebrows. “You’re welcome to try and talk your dad into letting you share a bed with your boyfriend.”

Laura winced.

“Exactly,” Stiles said. Then he looked at Ace. “Ace? If you’ll follow me.”

Ace picked up his backpack on the way out of Laura’s room and followed Stiles to a bedroom down the hall. Unlike Laura’s, which had dripped personality from every wall, this room was simple and non-descript.

“The bathroom’s two doors down on the right. Towels are in the linen closet at the end of the hall. Feel free to prowl around in the kitchen if you want a snack in the middle of the night, though try to be quiet about it, this house is full of light sleepers.” Stiles pinned Ace with a sharp look. “I’m not naïve, and neither is Derek, but for this week I would strongly advise against sneaking into Laura’s room to have sex.”

Ace squawked. “I _wasn’t_ …”

Stiles just looked unimpressed.

“I’m not an idiot,” Ace stammered. “Because I’m pretty sure if I _did_ , Derek would tear my balls off.”

Stiles hummed like he agreed completely. The threat of violence left Stiles unperturbed, which was disquieting.

“Like you wouldn’t be the one holding me down,” Ace muttered, tentative. He felt like Stiles could be the dad he could joke around with, but he still wasn’t sure. He offered a joke fearfully, like a libation presented to an angry god.

“Only if you hurt her.”

“Sir…” 

A look from Stiles.

“Stiles. Uh… I just want you to know that I would never hurt Laura.”

Stiles studied Ace in silence. The quiet scrutiny was unnerving, like Stiles was mentally deconstructing him. Ace was starting to get what Laura meant about her deceptively-harmless father taking people apart. Harmless, not so much.

“I mean… she’s just so amazing, you know? I’d be an idiot if I ever did anything to lose her. And I’m not. Uh, an idiot. Not that you’d know that from me rambling, and, uh…”

Taking pity on the young man, Stiles sighed. “Relax, Ace.” He cocked his head. “Did Laura tell you that you’re the first boy she’s brought home?”

“Yes, sir. She… actually made it sound like it would be like a gladiator being thrown in with the lions and all her boyfriends before would have been eaten alive.”

Stiles’ mouth twitched. “That’s actually pretty accurate.”

After meeting Derek, _yeah_ , Ace got that now.

“The road to happily ever after for me and Derek wasn’t easy. We fought for it, tooth and nail. And Laura was our first. She was our baby girl. Still is. So of course we’re going to be a couple of papa bears, and if you’re the kind of person that will let that scare you off, then you’re not a good fit for this family.”

Ace nodded.

“Because Derek and I will _always_ be protective of Laura. It doesn’t matter if she’s twenty-one or eighty-one. And this family can be kind of overwhelming to regular people.”

“That’s what Laura said.”

“And it’s true. You think _me and Derek_ are scary as fuck – and please, for my ego, let me believe you’re afraid of me, too – but you haven’t met _the pack_. We call it that, you know, and even I admit it totally sounds like we’re a gang. Once upon a time, we were just a bunch of misfits that banded together, but we’re a family now. Laura grew up thinking of them all as aunts and uncles, even if none of them are related to her by blood. And we’re close-knit. That makes some people uneasy. Some folks in town think we’re a cult.”

“Are you?”

Stiles smiled strangely. “I guess that depends on your definition. Everybody in the pack considers this house home. At any given time, some or all of them can be living with us. That’s not strange to us, but I can see how it might be strange to you. And if you plan on being with Laura long-term, that’s a reality you’re going to have to deal with. If you can’t, you need to seriously rethink this relationship.”

Ace took that in and mulled it over, trying to process this home life of Laura’s that veered off-center from traditional. He’d expected a mom, dad, and siblings. If he stretched his imagination, he might have predicted live-in grandparents. He definitely hadn’t anticipated aunts, uncles, _and_ Laura’s family all living together under one roof like some weird commune. It would take some getting used to, for sure.

When Ace glanced up at Stiles again, he startled when he saw Derek standing in the doorway past him. Derek was glowering at Ace, arms crossed over his strong chest, biceps straining the material of his Henley.

Stiles looked back and snorted. “Yeah, and get used to that, too. The creeper is strong with this one.”

Derek came up behind Stiles’ shoulder and invaded his personal space like he was making a statement. The room didn’t seem big enough to contain Stiles, Ace, and Derek, too. Derek Hale wasn’t enormous in size, but his presence was.

“Settling in well?” Derek asked, and it felt so much like he was actually asking ‘are you letting down your guard?’

“Uh… yes… yes, sir. Everything’s fine. Stiles was just giving me the shotgun and shovel talk.”

Derek’s eyebrows furrowed, but Stiles laughed. “Oh no, you’ll get _that_ talk from Laura’s grandfather tonight. Laura’s grandfather, aka, the former sheriff of Beacon Hills.”

Christ, Ace was _so_ dead.

“Come on, Grumpy,” Stiles leaned back into Derek to bump him with his shoulder. “Let’s let the kid settle in and change his underwear.”

Ace couldn’t help a tiny smile.

Derek scowled at him for it then followed Stiles closely out of the room with a hand on his husband’s back.

********

While everyone was in the backyard mingling, with Derek grilling hamburgers and Stiles setting the extra-long picnic table, Ace was sitting under a tree a fair distance away, watching. It had been Laura’s suggestion.

“You should just be on the periphery at first and let them get used to you being around before you jump in the middle of the group.”

“You make it sound like I’m a captive animal being introduced to a wild population,” he pointed out as Laura led him by the hand to the tree on the edge of the backyard, practically in the woods.

“That’s a perfect way to think of it.” She urged him to sit under the shade of the tree and mollified him with a quick kiss. “I’ll swing by to point out who everyone is as they arrive, but for now just make like Jane Goodall.”

Then she was gone.

In retrospect, Ace had to admit it was a less stressful way to be introduced to the ‘pack’ as Stiles liked to call them.

The first one to come home was her younger brother, Aaron. Ace didn’t even need to wait for Laura to tell him it was her brother. The resemblance was undeniable, and the way Laura launched herself at the kid said it all. Aaron caught Laura midair and swung her around. They pulled apart enough for Laura to say something – teasing, from her expression – and Aaron blushed and (oddly enough) snapped his teeth at her. Laura hauled the hood of her brother’s jacket over his head, gave him a shove, and bolted. Aaron whipped the hood off and gave chase, running down his sister and tackling her to the ground, where they proceeded to wrestle. Aaron had to be a senior in high school, built like Derek, but Laura held her own. No wonder she’d had no trouble with a couple of Great Danes.

Others began to trickle in, and Laura was diligent about slipping away to sit next to Ace and introduce them from afar.

“That’s Uncle Isaac,” she said of a tall man with curly hair. “He’s a sweetheart once you get to know him, but he takes a while to warm up to people. Don’t be offended if he just kind of avoids you for a while. That’s just how he is.”

A beautiful redhead arrived with a man that honestly gave Ace a douchebag vibe. “That’s Aunt Lydia and Uncle Jackson. Aunt Lydia is a genius. And a goddess, if you ask Pop. Uncle Jackson’s… meh… you’re not pack, so he’s probably going to be a dick to you. But he’s like that with everyone, so don’t take it personally. They have a son in college, my cousin Alexander, but MIT is a long way from Beacon Hills, so he only comes home during summers.”

The next ones to arrive were a couple – a sultry blonde woman and a black man built like a brick house – with two teenage girls (he’d guess around seventeen) that were clearly their children. They were twins, judging by their appearance, and soon verified when Laura swooped back in to point them out. “That’s Uncle Boyd, Aunt Erica, and their twins, Jade and Amber. Uncle Boyd’s the strong silent type but he’s pretty chill, Aunt Erica’s feisty as all get out, and do _not_ turn your back on those girls. They use their beauty to get away with _murder_.”

A family of four arrived next, a couple with two children. The woman was leading a curly-haired boy by the hand while the man carried a small girl on his hip. “That’s Uncle Scott and Aunt Allison. The twelve-year-old is Declan and the five-year-old is Maria. Uncle Scott is a great big puppy; he’ll probably be the first one to come say hi to you. And Aunt Allison is an expert markswoman with a bow and arrow.” Wait, what? “Maria turns up in laps when you least expect it, so don’t be surprised if she plops down in yours while you’re not looking.” Maria spotted Isaac standing with Boyd and Erica. “Daddy!” Scott put her down and she raced across the yard to be scooped up in Isaac’s arms. When Allison and Scott caught up, Isaac, Allison, and Scott all kissed each other. Ace’s eyes bugged and he looked over at Laura to find her watching him closely for his reaction. She smiled. “Yeah, they’re poly. Freaks people out at first, but they’re all so cute together you can’t hate on it. _Especially_ if you saw them before they worked this out. Those three were constantly breaking up and getting back together with each other in every combination. Drove us all crazy.”

The last to arrive were older, and Ace had already made a decent guess when Laura knelt beside him and said, “That’s my grandpa, John Stilinski, and Uncle Scott’s mom, Melissa McCall, but we call her Grammccall.” She shrugged sheepishly. “Grandma McCall was a mouthful for a toddler, and Grammccall stuck.”

With that, Laura rejoined her family to greet the newcomers, welcomed home with open arms from everyone.

Ace sat back watching. There was no doubt that everyone present was well aware of him on the outskirts. While the family talked and mingled, looks were frequently thrown his way. Ace _felt_ like the zoo animal being released into the wild. The Wild Hales. Pack was accurate, because they felt like one to an outsider like Ace.

As Laura predicted, Scott was the first to break from the group and approach him. He stopped a few paces from Ace and offered a small wave. “Hi. You’re Laura’s boyfriend, right?”

“That’s right. Name’s Ace.”

Scott grinned. “Feel like running yet?”

Ace snorted.

Scott invited himself to sit. “I can imagine how intimidating this must be. I wouldn’t want to be the guy trying to court Derek Hale’s daughter.”

Ace cast a nervous glance toward Derek. As if the man could actually hear all the way over at the grill, Derek looked his way and scowled. “Yeah, uh… Laura’s father is kind of terrifying.”

Scott chuckled. “I wish I could tell you his bark is worse than his bite, but…” Scott shrugged as if to say ‘what can you do’, like it was just a fact of life that Derek Hale looked like he could pick Ace up and break him in half. And Ace was a _football player_.

Scott inched closer and dropped his voice. “Just be patient with him.” There was a gentle somberness in the older man’s words. “Did Laura tell you she was named after Derek’s sister?”

“No.”

Scott nodded. “She died when Derek was twenty-two. The rest of Derek’s family died in a fire when he was sixteen.”

Ace stared, speechless.

“So Derek’s kind of overprotective when it comes to family. He knows what it’s like to lose everyone. Now he’s worried you’re trying to take Laura away.”

“I’m not…”

“I know you aren’t. You couldn’t. Laura wouldn’t let you. Being with her means becoming a Hale. Like the rest of us.”

“But you’re, uh, you’re not _actually_ …”

Scott smirked. “Stiles may have been the only one who took the name, but ask any one of us and we’d tell you we consider ourselves Hales. It’s a… group thing.”

“You mean a ‘pack’ thing.”

Scott looked surprised. “That’s right. My kids may be Argents on paper, but in their hearts they’re Hales. If you love Laura enough, you’ll become one, too.” He lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Smells like dinner’s ready.”

With that, Scott stood and held out a hand to Ace to help him up.

He ended up sitting between Laura and her grandfather, who put a strong hand on Ace’s shoulder and said, “Hello, son, let me tell you about my gun collection,” in the tone of ‘let me tell you about our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.’ Maria climbed into his lap while he was too dumbstruck by the specs on a Sig Sauer P226 9 millimeter to protest.


	3. Chapter 3

Ace felt like he weathered dinner like a hurricane and came out the other end shell-shocked and twitchy. No one had been overtly hostile (if Derek’s scowls couldn’t be counted as an assault, and Ace would argue that they could), but all the veiled threats to his person should he break Laura’s heart were almost palpable. Hidden behind smiles and laughs were promises of blood and steel. Allison extolled the virtue of her bows a little too pointedly. John inquired about Ace’s criminal record. Jackson recounted the tale of breaking a mugger’s arm without breaking a sweat. Erica leaned in and managed to make ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, right, Ace?’ sound like a seduction. Stiles looked content to sit back and gauge how much pack protectiveness Ace could take, like it was a test. The only ones who seemed even remotely on his side were Scott and Melissa. Isaac and Boyd seemed to be reserving judgment, and Lydia was _watching_ him with this calculating look that might not be _threatening_ , per se, but it still made his stomach tie up in knots.

He didn’t have much of an appetite for dinner, which explained why he was creeping down the stairs close to midnight to raid the pantry for something to eat. The house seemed spookily cavernous at night. It was the first time he thought he understood the strange communal living arrangement, because the house would surely feel less haunted if there were more people in it.

Ace was standing in front of the fridge contemplating a Tupperware of leftovers when hands appeared out of nowhere and covered his eyes.

He was in hostile territory, so of course he yelped. And dropped the container of potato salad.

He twisted and pulled the hands from his face to find Laura fighting back a laugh, hands going to her mouth to muffle the sound.

“Laura!” he hissed, eyes flying toward the ceiling wondering if anyone heard that.

“Sorry, you’re not usually that jumpy!” She ducked down to retrieve the dropped potato salad. Luckily, the lid hadn’t popped off.

“I’m not usually one hundred percent sure half the people in town want me dead.”

Laura put the Tupperware back in the fridge and closed the door.

“I was going to eat that,” Ace protested.

Laura turned to him with a smile. “I’ve got something way better.” Then she leaned in and silenced Ace with a kiss. He wanted to hold on to his indignation, he really did, but it was hard to care about anything else when Laura Hale was plastered to him, kissing him like tomorrow was the end of the world.

When she pulled away slowly, eyes hooded, Ace touched his forehead to hers. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

She combed her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and nudged his jaw with her nose. “Worth the fall of Sparta?” she whispered playfully.

Ace wrapped his arms around her hips and lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her arms around him and bit back a squeal as he walked forward and set her down on a bar stool at the kitchen island. There he pressed his face into her neck, kissing her skin. Worth the fall of a hundred Spartas. Laura tipped her head to give him better access, legs wrapping coyly around his thighs.

“You better hope Dad doesn’t catch you doing that,” a voice startled them apart like they’d been scalded. Ace looked up and saw Aaron standing in the kitchen entryway, barefoot, wearing pajama pants and a threadbare t-shirt.

Laura looked over her shoulder at her brother. “What are you doing down here?”

Aaron looked at her and a grin started on one side of his mouth. “Really?”

Laura beamed.

“What’s going on?” Ace asked, sensing he was missing something.

Laura hopped off the stool and pushed Ace down into it. “When I said I had something better than leftover potato salad, I actually didn’t mean a kiss.” While she went to the fridge, Aaron went to the cupboard and pulled out three bowls.

Laura pulled a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the freezer.

Brother and sister served up ice cream, distributed bowls, plunked spoons down in each dish, and put the ice cream back like it was a choreographed dance, no words spoken. Before Ace could think to offer to help, they were all sitting at the island with a bowl of ice cream in front of them. Ace and Laura sat side-by-side on one end of the island and Aaron sat to Laura’s left.

“How’s Sam?” Laura asked as she licked her spoon.

Aaron paused and looked quickly at Ace, uncomfortable. The kid (if Ace could call a guy only a few years younger than himself a ‘kid’) looked so much like Laura. Like Derek. It would probably take very little for Aaron to look just as broody and grim as his father. The foundation was there, the architecture of sorrow and anger sketched out. Strangely, Ace found himself hoping Laura’s brother could find too many excuses to smile to ever be as stormy as Derek Hale.

Reading her brother’s hesitance to discuss his boyfriend in front of Ace, she kicked her brother’s stool lightly. “Don’t worry about him, he’s cool. You should totally ask him about Tyler sometime.”

Ace sighed theatrically. “ _One time_ … you make out with another guy _one time_ …”

Aaron’s stolid expression fractured and his lips twitched in a smile. “He’s good.”

“What did you two do today?” Laura asked as she leaned forward to dip her spoon into Aaron’s bowl.

He parried her attempt with his own spoon. “Played a pick-up game of basketball at the school.”

“Then made out under the bleachers, am I right?” Laura waggled her eyebrows.

Aaron blushed.

“You’re a menace,” Ace chided her, feeling an obligation to take Aaron’s side in the interest of bonding.

“Right?” Aaron piped up, flashing Ace a brief but appreciative smile.

“Told you,” a fourth voice joined the conversation.

Ace twisted on his stool to see Stiles and Derek both standing in the entryway. Stiles’ hair was a wreck, flattened on one side and defying gravity on the other. He was wearing a worn Beacon Hills PD shirt and sweats. Derek was pawing at his own hair (taming it as Stiles could not be bothered to do with his own), dressed in basketball shorts and a wife-beater. It showed off his muscular arms and chest. In a totally objective, honest, factual way: Laura’s dad? total DILF.

“Derek thought we had raccoons,” Stiles said as he moved toward the cupboard.

“I did not,” Derek countered as he moved to sit on the side of the island opposite Aaron. “Who do you think picked up the mint chocolate chip?”

Stiles chuckled as he pulled out two bowls, took out the ice cream, and scooped up two more helpings.

When he came back to the island and placed one bowl in front of Derek, ducking in to press a kiss to the grumpy man’s temple, Stiles caught Ace’s confused face and smiled. “This is not the first time Laura’s had a midnight yen for mint chocolate chip.”

“Not even the hundredth time,” Aaron quipped.

“We may have considered an intervention a few times,” Stiles added.

Laura huffed. “Whatever. Don’t believe a word they say, Ace, because like eighty percent of my midnight mint chocolate chip parties ended just like this.” She gestured at her family sitting around eating ice cream with her.

Stiles sat beside his husband and dug into the ice cream. Derek took a few bites and the sweet chill seemed to wake him up enough to finally notice his husband’s disheveled appearance. He frowned and reached up to try and comb Stiles’ hair down with his fingers.

Stiles waved the hand away. “Dude, leave it. This isn’t black tie.”

“You look like hedgehog roadkill.”

“You say the sweetest things.” Stiles flashed a saccharine smile.

Derek snorted and took another bite of ice cream.

“So, Ace,” Stiles looked toward his daughter’s boyfriend. “How’d you enjoy meeting the pack?”

Ace froze. “Ummm…”

Stiles lifted his eyebrows expectantly, expression unreadable.

“Pop,” Laura whined. “He’s just messing with you, Ace.”

Stiles’ mask cracked. “Little bit.”

Ace let out a breath. “They were… _something_.”

Stiles smirked. “That’s a word for it. You didn’t burst into tears, though, so points there.”

“They all love Laura very much. So at least we all had something in common,” Ace said.

Laura rolled her eyes. “Sap sap _sap_.”

Ace considered Laura fondly. “You take after your dad, don’t you?”

Aaron’s head snapped up and his eyes went wide. Laura’s mouth fell open. Realizing his error, Ace couldn’t bring himself to look toward Laura’s parents. An awkward silence descended wherein Ace basically waited to die.

Then Stiles started _laughing_.

Surprised and fearful, Ace looked their way. Stiles was leaning into Derek while Derek was scowling and… _blushing_?!

To his shock, Derek was the one who answered. Surly as ever. “If anyone in this marriage is allergic to saying nice things, it’s _Stiles_.”

“I’m not allergic to saying _nice things_ , but sap is _sap_ , man. Just say you love me, don’t wax poetic about the sunlit whiskey of my eyes.”

Derek narrowed his eyes at Stiles. “You’re just mad because you have no game.”

“Well, I never have. I’m still not really sure how I landed you.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Derek grumbled.

Stiles squawked indignantly and shoved at Derek’s shoulder. Derek twisted, lightning fast, grabbed Stiles by the wrists, and suddenly Stiles had been hauled up into Derek’s lap. They were two grown men, and it looked absolutely ridiculous, but it was kind of unbearably adorable, too. Especially when Stiles gently shook off Derek’s grip and looped one arm around Derek’s shoulders, content to stay. He gazed down softly at Derek, then shrugged. “Fine, it sucks that I can’t just think of romantic stuff on the fly. It’s the one time my ability to run my mouth fails me.”

“It’s okay,” Derek assured, nosing behind Stiles’ ear, “so long as your mouth doesn’t fail you in other areas.”

“ _Dad_!” Aaron and Laura screeched in unison. Ace choked on his ice cream trying not to laugh.

“I think it’s time for ‘the talk’,” Stiles said with false gravity. “Kids, your parents still ‘do it’. I know this must come as a shock…”

“ _Pop_!” Aaron yelped while Laura made gagging sounds.

“And as a monogamous, married couple,” Stiles barreled on, “we have no need for condoms. So we put the box we _just happened_ to buy last week in the hall bathroom. Should anyone have sudden, dire, unquestioned water balloon needs.”

Laura looked at her younger brother. “I feel like we got double-traumatized.”

“I agree. That was completely unnecessary.”

“Well, I figured Ace was tired of being the only one being made to feel uncomfortable,” Stiles responded, looking sidelong at Ace. Ace kept absolutely still lest he draw attention – and Stiles’ wit – against him. Maybe if he was completely still Stiles wouldn’t see him, like a t-rex.

Also, there was _no way_ he was having sex with Laura in her parents’ house. This felt like a test. The snake enticing him with a nice, shiny apple. He was not going to buckle under the pressure. He was on a hero’s quest, damnit. He wouldn’t fail in his epic journey to win Laura Hale just because he couldn’t keep it in his pants for one week.

“Anyway,” Stiles said. “Sorry about the pack today, Ace, but they weren’t going to pass up the chance to put Laura’s first serious boyfriend to the test. But we know they can be a lot to handle, so there won’t be any more huge get-togethers this week. Scout’s honor. In fact, Derek and I were talking about going swimming tomorrow, just present company.”

“That sounds awesome,” Laura nodded eagerly.

“I’m in,” Aaron agreed.

“Ace?” Stiles looked toward the young man.

Ace chewed his lip a second, torn. “Could we invite Sam, too?”

Derek’s eyes came up at that. The surprise in his gaze matched Aaron’s perfectly.

“I mean, it’s already not a family outing because I’m there,” Ace explained, “and I’m sure Aaron would have more fun if his boyfriend came along.”

Stiles slowly grinned. “Sounds like a great idea to me. Aaron?”

Aaron opened and closed his mouth a moment, then he swallowed. “Yeah… I could ask him.”

Derek’s expression lost some of its scariness as he looked at his son tenderly. The difference it made in Derek’s entire appearance was astounding.

“Well then, since we’ve got a full day planned tomorrow, we should all get some sleep.” Stiles slid off Derek’s lap and threaded his fingers through Derek’s to tug the older man toward the stairs. “Make sure you pups clean up down here before you go to bed. Good night.”

********

There was practically no one at the lake when the Hales and co. arrived, and that seemed strange for the week of spring break until they actually got in the water. Bold and reckless, Laura, Ace, Aaron, and Sam stripped down to their swimwear in record time, kicked off their shoes, and raced down the dock to leap into the water. Sam and Ace surfaced shrieking and scrambled out immediately. It had been a long winter, an unusually cool spring so far, and the weather had not warmed nearly enough for a northern California lake to be anything but frigid.

Ace and Sam were falling over each other to retreat back up the dock while Aaron and Laura laughed after them. Stiles had laid a towel down further up the bank to bask in the sun (albeit without taking off his shirt), but first he was doubled-over laughing as his kids’ boyfriends fled from the icy water. Derek, carrying a cooler from the car, broke into an uncharacteristic smile. Nice to know – and totally not surprising – that the misery of Ace and Sam would please him.

Derek put the cooler down and proceeded to peel off his shirt.

Ace and Sam both stuttered to a stop.

Frankly, Derek Hale was hotter than any man his age had right to be. He had to be in his mid-forties at least, and the gray at his temples proved his age, but his body was _rocking_. And Sam and Ace were… well, they both appreciated the male figure when a glorious specimen was right in front of them.

And Derek Hale was a damn glorious specimen.

Next to Ace, Sam totally made a high-pitched sound.

Derek snorted (like he knew damn well how attractive he was) and walked past them to dive into the lake with his kids.

Ace turned back to Stiles to find him smirking smugly. He’d totally been caught checking out Laura’s dad. So yep, that was mortifying. The only consolation was that Stiles seemed to be of the opinion that people couldn’t help notice how hot his husband was. He seemed _proud_ to be married to all that.

“Here,” Stiles tossed towels at both boys. “You two look like you’re about to turn blue.”

Ace sat down in the grass next to Stiles and vigorously toweled off. Sam opted to stay on his feet, using movement to try and warm himself up. Stiles lathered his exposed skin in sunscreen before he lay back with his hands interlaced behind his head.

Ace looked up at Sam. He wasn’t quite what he’d expected for Aaron’s boyfriend, to be honest. Aaron was attractive and athletic, and Ace knew that combination usually guaranteed the same qualities in one’s boyfriends/girlfriends. Sam wasn’t _unattractive_ , exactly, but he was on the scrawny side, and his swim trunks had Darth Vader on them.

Sam wiped his water-logged blond hair out of his eyes and shook his head. “How are they not freezing?” he marveled, watching Derek, Laura, and Aaron splashing in the lake merrily.

“Freaks of nature,” Stiles answered with a sly smile.

Neither boyfriend felt like they should dare agree, even if it was clearly true. Instead, Sam balled up his towel, dropped it on the grass, and went down to walk on the shore. He meandered up and down the waterline only a minute before Aaron pulled himself out of the water and took up alongside Sam, the two walking close, their shoulders brushing and conversation hushed.

Which left Ace alone with Stiles.

Before he could try to think of something to say (or weigh whether it was worth diving back into the freezing lake to escape the uncomfortable silence), Stiles said, “This is the first time we’ve met Sam.”

“Really?” Then Ace felt like face-palming. “Oh crap, I pushed the ‘meet the parents’ on them, didn’t I? Damnit, Aaron’s probably pissed at me.”

“Nah, he’s not pissed. You’ll know he’s pissed when he makes the grumpy cat face. Derek and I have been wanting to meet Sam for a while now, but we didn’t want to push Aaron. So thanks for making it no big deal.” Stiles grinned. “Besides, Sam is getting off _easy_.”

“No kidding. Why doesn’t he have to face the firing squad?”

Stiles chuckled. “If he and Aaron are together long enough, he will. This is new for Aaron, so we’re being careful.”

Ace made a noise, a wordless commentary on the fact that Laura’s boyfriend was not afforded the same care.

“Every kid needs to be handled a little differently,” Stiles explained knowingly. “Aaron’s a lot like Derek: he may look invincible, but he gets hurt easily. And if you’re not paying attention, you won’t even know it, because he bleeds on the inside.”

Ace spared a glance toward Derek, trying to imagine that being true for the eldest Hale, but he couldn’t wrap his head around it. Derek was made of steel, Ace would swear to it in court.

“And Laura?” Ace prompted, curious to hear her father’s perspective.

With his eyes closed, Stiles grinned. “Laura is the daughter after my own heart. Outspoken and resilient as hell. You can push her more than you can Aaron, because Laura will throw it off when it gets to be too much and ask ‘what the fuck?’ Aaron… that kid would just bow his back and shoulder more weight.”

Ace didn’t know Aaron very well, but that sounded like a spot-on description of Laura.

They lapsed into silence, and it almost felt companionable.

Ace sat up a little when he saw Derek haul himself up on the dock and walk toward Stiles, dripping wet. Which was just all kinds of unfair. Though he probably shouldn’t be surprised that Laura, drop-dead gorgeous as she was, would have a dad that could be a freaking model. He hadn’t really braced himself for that reality, though. Laura should have warned him about _that_. Ace’s mouth fell open, but it must have looked like he was about to speak, because Derek brought a finger to his lips in the universal ‘shhhh’ gesture.

Then Derek proceeded to sneak up on Stiles, who remained oblivious as he lay with eyes closed enjoying the warmth of the sun. Silent as a shadow, Derek dropped down to his hands and knees next to Stiles, eyed him, then leaned over and shook his head like a dog. Cold water went flying and rained down on Stiles.

“Son of a bitch!” Stiles yelped and jackknifed, swatting at Derek. “Derek, that’s _cold_!”

Derek pinned Stiles down with a hand on his chest and gave his head another shake.

“Stop it!” Stiles yelled, but he was also cracking up, which stole a lot of the sincerity from his protests.

Derek huffed a laugh and dropped down like a Saint Bernard with delusions it was a lapdog, sprawling half on top of Stiles and laying his wet head on his husband’s chest. Stiles grunted, fisted his hand in Derek’s drenched hair, and muttered, “I swear to god, raised by wolves.” Derek hummed and nestled in closer, wrapping an arm around Stiles’ waist. Despite being the only one wise enough not to brave the lake, Stiles’ clothes were soon soaked anyway.

Ace didn’t realize he was smiling just a little bit at the sight until Derek opened one eye and looked at him. Derek Hale proved that one could cuddle and look dangerous at the same time. Ace felt like a deer spotted by a predator. It wiped the smile off Ace’s face (and possibly made his testicles crawl up into his abdomen).

Mercifully, Laura came to his rescue. A shadow fell over him and he looked up to see Laura standing over him with her hands on her hips. She was breath-taking in her black bikini, water glistening off her tan skin like the radiance of Mount Olympus itself.

Laura might have a point about him being a romantic sap.

“So, are you just going to hang out with my dads all day or what?” she asked, feigning anger, but the coy curl at the corners of her mouth betrayed her. Looking past her, Ace saw Sam and Aaron sitting next to each other at the end of the dock, feet dangling over the edge.

“Come on,” Laura beckoned.

And Ace went. He got to his feet without question. It didn’t matter where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do, he’d go anywhere and do anything with her. He heard a snort and looked down to see Stiles’ eyes open as he watched them. Laura held out her hand and Ace took it. It felt like a lifeline saving him from probable death at the hands of two protective fathers.

“Me, Sam, and Aaron were talking about the four of us going into town for dinner tonight,” Laura said to her parents as she sidled up next to Ace. “Like a double-date. Will you two be fine on your own?”

Derek turned his face into Stiles’ body to hide a smile. Stiles laughed. “The house all to ourselves? Yeah, I think we’ll manage.”

“ _Ugh_!” Laura groaned and dropped her forehead onto Ace’s shoulder. “And to think I felt bad for ditching you guys while I’m home on spring break.”

A glint in Stiles’ eyes made Ace tense. He hadn’t known Stiles long, but he’d known him long enough to be afraid of that spark. “That’s sweet of you to worry about your decrepit old dads home all alone, honey, but we got by without you and your brother for years. We can entertain ourselves. In fact, the longer you four want to stay out, the better.”

Laura made a pitiful noise, Stiles looked downright evil, and Derek legit kind of growled and opened his mouth to honest-to-god _bite_ Stiles on the chest through his shirt. Stiles flinched. “ _Ow_! Watch the teeth, Cujo.”

“Stop traumatizing our children.”

“No way! They’re finally old enough to mess with like grown-ups, and you know how long I’ve been biting my tongue with these witty innuendos? Do you, Derek?”

“This is a twisted form of punishment for bringing home a boyfriend,” Laura groaned. “I know it is.”

The wicked grin on Stiles’ face said that Laura wasn’t wrong. “Laura, my pride and joy, if you’re going to make your father and I contemplate the things _you’re_ doing in the bedroom…”

That was all Ace could take. That and Derek had lifted his head at the comment and leveled a murderous look at Ace. As if it was _his_ fault everyone was awkwardly imagining people having sex. Stiles was the one implying everyone was having wild monkey sex, god damnit, why was Ace getting the glare of doom?

“All right!” Ace squawked, “That’s enough of that. Laura? How would you like to throw me in the lake? Doesn’t that sound fun? And hey, if you really wanted to help a guy out, you’d drown me.”

Stiles and Laura exploded with laughter. Even Derek, though he tried not to, couldn’t help a twisted smile. And of course he’d enjoy that, it involved Ace getting hypothermia and _dying_. If he was looking for a way to win Derek Hale’s approval, drowning would probably be a good start.

All Ace could figure was that he must have been a horrible person in a past life to have to endure the Hales in this one.

“Run along, pups,” Stiles chuckled, lifting off the hand he had on Derek’s back to shoo them. “Just let us know when you want to head back to wash up and get ready for your long, _long_ night out on the town.”

“Nope, nope, nope,” Ace chanted under his breath as he grabbed Laura’s hand and dragged her toward the dock. She giggled and hurried to keep up.

When they joined Aaron and Sam on the dock, Ace heaving a great sigh like a gazelle that just outran a lion, Aaron looked both amused and sympathetic. “Dude,” Ace said, “your parents are _insane_.”

“Oh, I know,” Aaron agreed with a smirk that was too much Derek’s panther and too much Stiles’ imp to be reassuring.

“They don’t seem that bad,” Sam said.

Ace turned horrified eyes on Sam. “You don’t even _know_.”

“Quit scaring my boyfriend,” Aaron muttered, blushing just a little.

“I’m not saying Hales aren’t worth it,” Ace countered, casting a glance at Laura, his Trojan jewel to inflame the world to war. “I get it. And they’re _totally_ worth it. But dating a Hale is _not_ for the faint of heart.”

Aaron and Laura exchanged a peculiar look. Then they both smiled.

“No,” Laura agreed, “no, it’s not.”


	4. Chapter 4

The four of them went to dinner at a restaurant in town that held the crown as the makers of the best curly fries in the county. That was nothing the establishment boasted, mind, but the firm opinion of the Hales.

“They’re the _best_ ,” Laura insisted.

Aaron nodded complete agreement. “Ask Pop; he’s sworn by this place’s curly fries as long as we can remember.”

“And Pop _knows_ curly fries,” Laura whispered, like it was a state secret.

Ace was ambivalent about the curly fries. He was more interested in the reaction of the locals when they came through the door. To put it bluntly, people noticed the Hales. Heads swiveled their direction, eyes locked on them, voices dropped to whispers. Laura had mentioned the rumor mill in Beacon Hills having some wild ideas about the Hale family (and they really did it to themselves, living out in the woods like they did), and he supposed this was what she meant. The looks they drew weren’t necessarily _bad_ , not exactly _good_ … more the gaze of unrelenting curiosity. Like the Hales were a mystery that stubbornly refused to come to light.

Laura nudged Ace in the ribs and he realized the hostess was leading them to a booth.

When they were seated and each given a water, Laura took note of Ace’s expression and leaned in to say softly, “It’s a small town. They like to gossip. People still talk about what happened to my dad’s family.”

“The fire?”

Laura blinked, surprised, and Aaron looked up, at first startled then suspicious as his eyes narrowed.

“Your Uncle Scott told me about it.”

“Yeah,” Laura nodded minutely. “That kind of thing gets twisted by townspeople. I think half of them believe our house is haunted.”

“It’s the same house that burned?”

“Not the _same_ house, obviously,” Laura answered, “but it’s in the same spot. Dad had the ruins leveled and built the new house exactly where the old one stood. That doesn’t help keep the fauna of Beacon Hills from getting crazy ideas.”

“That and apparently Dad was kind of a shady guy when he first moved back to town,” Aaron added with a smirk. “At least, that’s what everyone tells us. Dad still gets huffy about it when anyone brings it up.”

Ace nodded absently and brought his water up to his lips to drink.

“Whereas Grandpa loves it,” Laura smiled back at her brother. “I don’t think we’ve gone a single Christmas without hearing about Grandpa arresting Dad once for suspected murder.”

Ace spit water all over the table. “ _What_?!” he sputtered.

Laura and Aaron laughed. Sam looked across the table at him like he felt Ace’s shock keenly.

“Don’t worry, baby, he didn’t do it,” Laura assured while patting Ace on the back. “But story is he had a look that made him a believable suspect.”

Uh, _yeah_. Half the looks Ace got from the man convinced him the eldest Hale wanted him dead in a ditch.

“Why did you have to tell me that?” Ace bemoaned. “As if I wasn’t scared shitless enough around your father. Really, I could have gone without knowing that.”

A wicked glint all too _Stilesish_ for comfort glimmered in Laura’s eye. “I’d be more worried about Pop on that front.”

Ace gave her a worried look.

“Pop’s a forensic investigator for the police department. So when he kids that he knows how to make you disappear or how kill you and never get caught, he _means_ it.”

Ace gaped at her, dumbstruck. “Laura… if I forgot your birthday or Valentine’s Day or something else that was important to you, then I am truly, incredibly sorry. But don’t you think I’ve paid for it by now? Haven’t I suffered enough?”

Laura leaned in and kissed him. “I’m actually trying to help you.”

“ _How_?! How in god’s name is scaring me _helping_?”

“You’ll win a lot of points with Dad if you don’t underestimate Pop.” Laura hooked her hands around Ace’s elbow. “Dad thinks the moon and stars of Pop, so your opinion of him will carry a lot of weight in Dad’s opinion of _you_.”

“Dad really doesn’t give two shits what you think of _him_ ,” Aaron agreed, glancing quickly at Sam in a ‘are you paying attention’ look. “He’ll decide whether to like you or not depending on how you treat his loved ones.”

“Dad’s always been like that,” Laura said. “I had a teacher once that _hated_ Dad – I still have no idea why – but she thought I was the most gifted student she’d had in years, so Dad liked her.” Laura snickered. “Pop actually got into a fight with him about that, trying to make Dad dislike my teacher! Dad didn’t get why it should matter if she didn’t like _him_ – the only thing that mattered to him was what she thought of _me_.”

That was at odds with the mental construct Ace had put together so far for Derek Hale. He presumed a brusque alpha type, the man at the apex of the pyramid with his family layered under him. Someone keenly mindful of his image, his status, his power. The Derek Laura described didn’t fit that profile. Willing to dismiss and neglect his own standing in someone’s eyes so long as his husband and children were lauded?

Ace wondered if he’d been approaching the thorny problem of Laura’s dad all wrong.

“Knew you were smart,” Laura beamed lovingly at him, no doubt seeing the ‘lightbulb’ go on in her boyfriend’s eyes. Then she turned to the pair across the table from them. “Come with me, Sam,” Laura inched toward the edge of the bench and waved for Sam to follow suit.

“Why?”

“Because there’s an arcade game in the back, and I want to see if you’re any good at it.”

“And now we learn the true reason behind choosing this restaurant,” Aaron sighed. “She just wants to rub your nose in the fact she has the three top scores.”

“Shut it,” Laura snapped her teeth at her brother. “Don’t mind him, Sam… let’s see what kind of hand-eye coordination you’ve got.”

With that, she snagged Sam by the wrist and led him toward the back of the restaurant.

When Sam and Laura were gone, Ace looked across the table at Aaron and realized it was the first time he’d been alone with Laura’s brother. The younger man was studying him intently. Without Laura there to deflect his energy, Ace noticed Aaron’s quiet intensity. Laura was so adept at jumping in with something to jar her brother from his default disposition, in absence of distractions, that Ace hadn’t even noticed the very real shadow of Derek Hale in Aaron until he was left alone with the youngest Hale.

The similarity to the Hale patriarch made Ace squirm.

“So… Sam seems nice.”

Aaron cocked his head fractionally. “He’s great.” Another silence where Aaron just stared at him. “And you seem all right.”

“Uh… thanks?”

A muscle in Aaron’s cheek twitched. “I want to like you, Ace. You seem like a good guy, and you clearly make Laura happy.”

“And Laura being happy and you liking me go together, right?” Ace could tell a ‘break her heart, I’ll break your legs’ speech when one was unfolding right in front of him. Frankly, he’d expect nothing less of Laura’s little brother. He’d be a crappy brother if he _didn’t_ try to protect his sister from heartbreak.

Aaron fought back a disquieting smirk. “Exactly. And I understand, couples break up. It happens. But there is a lot to be said for tact and grace.”

Feeling awkward, Ace reached for a napkin in the dispenser by the wall for something to do with his hands. “You could make it sound less like I’m rehearsing the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech, you know. I’m not planning on breaking up with your sister anytime soon.”

Suddenly Aaron’s hand was clamped down on Ace’s arm. Ace flinched and looked up at Aaron, startled.

Aaron leaned in to lower his voice. “You don’t know everything about my sister. And it takes a certain kind of mettle to date a Hale. Most people don’t have it. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But if you _don’t_ and you get her hurt…” Aaron’s grip tightened, constricting painfully and nails biting into Ace’s skin, impossibly sharp. “If anything happens to her because of you, I will tear out your intestines and hang them from a tree.”

“God damn, dude,” Ace hissed, trying to pull his arm free. “Graphic much? And let up on the kung fu grip.”

Aaron eyed him darkly.

“Aaron, come on,” Ace appealed to the young man. “I love Laura. I would never hurt her.” ‘Not like you’re hurting me,’ Ace thought but wisely did not say.

With care, Aaron uncurled his fingers. Ace snatched back his arm and rubbed the sore spot. “I totally get you wanting to protect your sister, it’s practically your _job_ as her brother, but I haven’t _done_ anything. Could you maybe save the aggression for after you have a reason for it?”

“Until my house is already burning?”

“ _Dude_. What the hell, Aaron?”

Aaron scowled. “The fire that killed Dad’s family wasn’t an _accident_.”

Ace’s jaw dropped. “Oh my god, someone _set_ the house on fire?!”

“The world is full of two kinds of people, Ace. Those who would try to stop it and those who would light the match.” He narrowed his eyes at Ace. “My instincts want to tell me you’re in the first group. That you wouldn’t hurt us. I hope my instincts are right.”

Ace boggled, noting that Aaron’s concern had branched out from just Laura to the rest of the family. Aaron seemed to honestly think Ace could somehow be a danger to all of them.

In an instant, Aaron’s scary death-threat face lifted, went from severe to neutral. He sat back and _almost_ smiled. “Sorry if I scared you.”

Ace peered at Aaron. “No, you’re not.”

Aaron chuckled. “No, not really. But I really do want to like you. And you’re the only one Laura’s ever been this serious about, so that counts for something. I just want you to understand what happens to anyone who hurts the pack.”

“Let’s see,” Ace ticked off his fingers. “Former murder suspect Derek, I-can-kill-you-without-a-trace Stiles, and intestines-in-trees Aaron… yep, I think I’ve got the picture.”

Aaron grinned. “And that’s not even counting the rest of the pack.”

Ace groaned. “Can I ask you a question?”

Aaron nodded.

“Are you all _trying_ to scare me away from Laura? Because it sure does seem like everybody wants us to break up.”

“We just want to know you’re serious about this relationship. About Laura.”

Something about that gave Ace pause. “Is that a hint I should propose?”

Aaron blinked. The question clearly caught him off-guard. “No… no, that’s not… we’d be in the same situation, whether you two were engaged or not.” He hesitated, threw a cautious glance toward the back of the restaurant, and barely whispered, “Are you planning to ask her to marry you?”

Ace pursed his lips. On the one hand, Aaron had totally boa-constrictored his hand. On the other, gaining Aaron’s confidence would be a help navigating the Hale family dynamics. “Can you keep a secret?”

Aaron nodded gravely.

“I’ve been thinking about it.” When Aaron looked stunned, Ace shrugged shyly. “I love her so much. I could see myself spending the rest of my life with her. But it didn’t seem right to propose – to even _think_ about the next level – when I hadn’t met her family yet and she hadn’t met mine. That’s kind of a huge deal, knowing the family you’d be marrying into… her and me.” Ace gave a nervous laugh. “But it might not even matter, she could say no.”

Aaron looked kind of touched. “I don’t think she would. But you were right to do the families first. I’m not sure what yours is like, but I can tell you it’s a big deal to the Hales, getting to know potential new members.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Ha! If this is good, I’d hate to see bad.”

Aaron smirked.

“So… do you think Laura’s giving Sam the same talk you just gave me?”

Aaron snorted at first, then he froze and his eyes went wide. “I’ll be right back,” he croaked and slipped quickly out of the booth to go after his sister and boyfriend.

Ace held back a snicker until he was alone. He felt for Sam; he and the teenager were fellow soldiers in a foxhole in a warzone. He didn’t feel enough sympathy for the kid to jump up and try to race to his rescue, though. If he had to suffer the horror of a Hale sibling ‘chat’, then Sam did, too.

*********

Ace could have done without knowing that the current Hale house was built exactly where the old one had stood – where all of Derek Hale’s family had died in a horrible fire. After learning that little factoid, it was nearly impossible to get to sleep that night. Ace didn’t even believe in ghosts, but he remembered his hairs standing on end when he first approached the house with Laura, and maybe that had been why. Maybe he needed to reconsider his stance on life after death. Perhaps he was being too close-minded. Because there _was_ something eerie about the Hale house. He felt like there were people watching him, listening to him, even when he was the only one in the room. And he could swear that night he heard a wolf howl out in the woods, despite the fact _there were no wolves in California_.

All around what the fuck.

Of course, come morning, he felt stupid about the childish afraid-of-the-dark thoughts he’d entertained during the night. He didn’t _not_ think those thoughts just because the sun was up – he totally still thought the Hale homestead was shrouded in some paranormal-ass shit – but in the light of day they seemed stupid. And he definitely wasn’t going to say anything to Laura. He wasn’t sure if she’d make fun of him for it or be hurt that he thought something was wrong with her home.

It was more a fact he had to embrace. ‘So Laura’s house is haunted, and maybe the woods, too’ but he’d be damned if he let a few ghosts chase him away from the woman he loved. The ghosts would have to up their game to full-on poltergeists to send him running.

He was feeling weirdly _heroic_ about picking Laura over the creepiness of her haunted home when he went downstairs for breakfast and found Laura, Derek, and Stiles already in the kitchen.

Laura smiled at him from one of the kitchen stools.

“Good morning,” Ace threw out a broad greeting and took a seat on the stool next to Laura. Stiles and Derek were shoulder-to-shoulder at the range cooking breakfast. It smelled fantastic.

“Where’s Aaron?” Ace asked, looking around and noticing the missing Hale.

“Still sleeping, probably,” Laura replied. “He went out for a midnight run last night.”

Ace thought about asking Aaron if he heard the wolf, too, for all of two seconds before he decided he’d rather _not_ be ridiculed for having an overactive imagination and being no better than the townsfolk who gossiped about the haunted Hale house, thank you very much.

Stiles paused to turn and look at Ace. “How do you like your eggs?”

“However you’re making them is fine by me.”

When Stiles gave him a dubious look, like Ace shouldn’t eat eggs he didn’t like just to be polite, Laura snickered. “No, really, Pop. Ace will eat an egg any way you fix it. I kind of think he’d eat one raw.”

“I would not.” Ace made a point to sound appropriately scandalized by the accusation.

“Not even if someone dared you to do it?”

Ace considered that. “For how much?”

Laura gestured at Ace while Stiles laughed. “See? He’d consider it.” She dropped her hand to his arm, smiling fondly, then her expression clouded when she looked down at the skin under her hand. “What’s this?”

Ace looked down and noticed the bruises from Aaron’s Superman grip yesterday, turning his skin brown underneath Laura’s fingers. “Uh… nothing.”

Laura looked sharply at him. “Aaron did this, didn’t he?”

At that, Stiles turned again, demeanor shifting immediately. “What did Aaron do?” He moved forward to see for himself.

“It’s nothing,” Ace tried to wave it off, but Laura had his hand in hers and preventing escape as she examined the hand-shaped bruise near his wrist. Stiles came around the island and peered down at the mark. “Really,” Ace insisted, “I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t count on it,” Stiles grumbled, then he moved toward the stairs. “Aaron! Get your ass downstairs right now!”

A few minutes later, Aaron appeared in the kitchen. “Yeah?”

“Care to explain the bruises on Ace’s arm?” Stiles asked, arms crossed.

Aaron’s eyes dropped to Ace’s arm then widened. “Uuuh…”

“Not good enough, mister. You know better than that. And don’t try to tell me it was an accident; we haven’t had to remind you to be careful not to hurt anyone since you were a kid.”

“Guys, it’s fine, I’m not a delicate flower here,” Ace argued feebly. He played football, for pete’s sake. Everyone in the room cast him a rather dismissive and utterly emasculating look. Well, nice to know they all had such high opinions of his ability to get a little banged up and take it like a man.

“Getting rough with people is not okay,” Stiles scolded his son. “Now what do you have to say for yourself?”

Aaron shuffled his feet and dropped his gaze, like he was all of eight years old again. “I’m sorry, Ace.”

Feeling like he was missing something, Ace blinked. “Really, dude, it’s fine. I get bruises way worse than this from football practice on a regular basis. Don’t sweat it.”

Aaron looked hopefully at Stiles.

It was Derek who spoke next. “Make yourself useful and get everyone something to drink.”

Aaron jumped to comply.

Stiles turned to scowl at Derek, one finger raised. “You let that kind of stuff slide too much.”

Derek just shrugged one shoulder.

“And don’t think I don’t know why. He gets this from you, you know.”

Derek reached up and calmly pushed Stiles’ finger down. “I’m not letting him get away with it,” he said evenly, scary as fuck. Which implied Aaron was going to get to sweat about his punishment for who knew how long.

Aaron, setting a glass of orange juice in front of Ace, gulped.

Ace actually felt sorry for him.

Stiles harrumphed. “ _Hales_.” Then he turned to Ace. “Please tell me Laura’s not this bad with you.”

Ace froze. Stiles wasn’t asking about… kinky-rough stuff, right?!

 _Wait_ , Laura prepped him for this…

“Laura’s the alpha!” he kind of shouted.

Beside him, Laura face-palmed while Aaron bit back a laugh. Stiles just lifted his eyebrows and Derek twisted around to give Ace a look. That piercing stare from Laura’s dad frankly had Ace immobilized, like a deer in headlights.

“Yes,” Derek said at length, “yes, she is.” Then he turned back to preparing breakfast. Ace wasn’t really _sure_ , but… was there a hint of approval in that statement?

These Hales would be the death of him.

With a roll of his eyes, Stiles turned to Ace. “I wish I could say it gets better as they get older, but it doesn’t. They’re animals, the whole lot of them. Just be glad you didn’t get thrown into any walls or had your head bashed into a steering wheel.”

Wait, what?

Derek gave Stiles a glower.

“Oh, don’t even, sourwolf. You’re never living those early days down. We’ll be in our nineties eating pureed hamburgers and I’ll be bringing it up.” With an evil smirk and a wink, he swatted Derek on the ass.

Derek sighed and lowered his head, like Stiles was a cross he had to bear.

Stiles grinned, darted in, and kissed Derek on the cheek. Then he pulled back and frowned. “No, wait, I was mad at you because your son’s a bully.” Stiles punched Derek in the arm.

Derek looked down at his arm pointedly. “Hypocrite.”

“Oh, like that even hurt. Besides, I’ve lived with you for long enough that I can say I’ve picked up your bad habits, so this is your fault, too. Way to go.”

“Stiles, go sit down.”

“See?! You can’t even ask nicely.”

Derek turned an intense look on Stiles. “Go sit down, or I’m going to rip your throat out…”

“Yeah, yeah, with your teeth,” Stiles rolled his eyes like the threat wasn’t even worth getting the least bit uneasy about… or like it wasn’t strange for Derek to threaten to tear out Stiles’ throat.

Ace stood by the assessment that Laura’s parents were terrifying and strange.

When Stiles’ eyes dropped from their roll, they landed on Ace and he smirked. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t _really_ bite.”

Aaron and Laura both snorted.

Stiles gave them both a patented dad-look. “Guess we’re not even aiming for discrete here, kids? Well, _fine_ , he bites… I meant he doesn’t bite _me_.”

Laura and Aaron groaned.

Stiles threw up his hands, exasperated. “Well, it’s not my fault you’re all walking lie-detectors!” he exclaimed. “And why would I even be talking about good-biting? People don’t complain about good-biting, happy-fun-times-biting, consensual-bii _ii_ –” Stiles’ words fell apart when Derek snuck up behind him, leaned in, and actually _bit_ him where his neck and shoulder met. It had an immediate effect. Stiles kind of went boneless and moaned, his eyes going glassy.

“I’m going to be sick,” Aaron gagged and left the kitchen.

Laura dropped her forehead to the island and a muffled, “ _Gross_!” bounced off the formica. Ace just felt epically uncomfortable at what he was witnessing, because Laura liked biting him _in the same spot_.

He could have lived a thousand lifetimes without knowing his girlfriend and her father shared the same biting kink.

Derek released the flesh of Stiles’ neck, kissed the teeth marks left behind, and glanced up at Ace. There was the tiniest, most predatory smile on Derek’s face. “Sometimes it’s the only way to shut him up.”

Volumes and volumes of things Ace did not need to know about Laura’s fathers.

Stiles mumbled incoherently, like he’d been rendered dumb by Derek’s bite, and dropped down onto one of the island stools. Derek, looking smug as fuck, passed plates to everyone. He left a plate in Aaron’s spot, obviously feeling confident his son couldn’t stay away from a meal.

“So, Ace,” Stiles said after a few bites of eggs and sausage to get his brain back on the rails. “I was meaning to ask you… your last name, Thoreau. Any relation to Henry David?”

“I don’t think so,” Ace answered, wiping at his mouth with a napkin to make sure he didn’t have egg on his face, literally. He’d had egg on his face figuratively plenty so far this week when it came to dealing with Laura’s parents. “I’ve never actually seen our family tree, so I guess it’s possible, but I doubt it. I don’t have a poetic bone in my body.”

“That’s BS,” Laura argued. “Ace is poetic as hell when he wants to be.” She looked at him, and he just _knew_ where she was going with that and started to shake his head emphatically. No no no. Laura grinned. “He calls me his _Hale_ n of Troy and tells me how he would launch a thousand ships for me all the time.”

Ace knew his face was turning red.

Stiles laughed. Derek… fuck, he actually looked kind of… touched? Moved? No. That couldn’t be right. He must have taken a particularly tasty bite of breakfast at that exact moment to explain the less-than-murderous look on his face. A transcendental sliver of bacon was the explanation.

Ace cleared his throat and kicked Laura’s leg underneath the island, shielded from paternal eyes. “Technically, that’s historical or mythological, not poetic.”

“It’s _romantic_ ,” Laura countered.

And Ace… well, he couldn’t really argue that.

“It is kind of sappy,” Stiles agreed, “but it’s sweet.” Ace might feel better about that if it didn’t look like Stiles was fighting back laughter as he said it.

“Rubes,” Derek grumbled, and before Ace could stop himself, he quipped, “I know, right?” Then he froze and awaited death. Probably by having his throat ripped out, because apparently Derek Hale was into that.

Derek studied Ace a long, torturously quiet moment, then he actually smirked. “My son may have gotten my bad habit of resorting to physical violence, but Laura got Stiles’ gift for being as romantic as a smelly old tennis shoe.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Stiles and Laura protested in unison.

Derek cut a sidelong look at Stiles, who was pouting. “Lucky for them they found people who love them anyway.”

Stiles’ lips pinched as he tried to hold the pout and failed in the battle to hold off a smile.

Ace looked over at Laura and she looked kind of embarrassed. He reached over and took her hand, bringing it to his face to kiss her knuckles, which only made her blush more. It was true… if Ace wanted sonnets and elaborate Valentine’s Days and hours lost staring into each other’s eyes, Laura was not the girl for it. But if he wanted someone who would jump in the car with him for a weekend where they blindly picked a direction and just drove, if he wanted someone full of so much life he wondered how she could even be human, if he wanted passion and laughter and fierce loyalty… _that_ was Laura Hale. If he was waiting for Laura to wax poetic about their relationship, he’d be in for disappointment. He’d be waiting forever. But that wasn’t what he loved about Laura. He loved that she was the kind of person would dive into the middle of battle and stand back-to-back with him, no matter the odds.

Fleetingly, Ace wondered if that was what Stiles was for Derek. If Laura and Stiles were so alike in personalities, did Derek see the same to-hell-and-back loyalty and passion in Stiles that Ace did in Laura?

He kind of hoped so. It made Laura’s dad a little less frightening to think he could be so hopelessly, utterly gone for someone like Ace was for Laura. Derek Hale might be a terrifying man, but believing he could be brought to ruin by a simple touch from his beloved, that Stiles could move Derek to rearrange the stars with only a look…

Shit, yes, okay, Laura was right, Ace was kind of prone to poetic drivel.

But that was okay, because Derek and Stiles were proof that match could work. Stiles was romantically-challenged, but he and Derek had been married for over twenty years. They seemed happy together, even if a little odd at first blush. They were in love.

If Ace could have twenty years like that with Laura…

“Ace?” Stiles said, sounding like he’d asked a question that Ace completely missed. Oops.

“Huh?”

Stiles shook his head, clearly trying not to laugh at him, but at least it looked fond. “We’d moved past the heart-eyes and were discussing plans for today. Are you up for going on a hike?”

“Oh,” he caught Laura smirking at him, knowing damn well he’d been full-on adoring her, and he gave her fingers a squeeze just hard enough to be punishing. “Yeah, sure. That sounds fun.”

Stiles smiled. “You say that now, but hiking with Hales is pretty rigorous.”

“I’m pretty athletic,” Ace argued. Because he was. And young. He had a couple of decades on Laura’s dad, easy. That had to give him a little bit of an edge, if nothing else then at least in the endurance department.

The smile never left Stiles’ face. “Guess we’ll see.”


	5. Chapter 5

Apparently to the Hales, a ‘hike’ was some combination of that, going for a run, playing hide and seek in the forest, and rock-climbing. The running and rock-climbing parts were worse than any drills any coach had ever put Ace through, but he managed to keep up… for the most part. Laura, her brother, and her dad had some ridiculous stamina and strength. They just did not seem to tire. _Ever_. Stiles didn’t even try to keep up, and he seemed amused at first that Ace wanted to try. Then he seemed impressed when Ace _did_. Sweating like a pig and wheezing like an asthmatic donkey sometimes, sure, but he kept up.

Begrudgingly, even Derek seemed impressed.

When they circled back around to Stiles (who’d been taking the day’s activities at a pleasant walk) for the fifth or sixth time, Laura, Derek, and Aaron decided to add the hide and seek portion of the day. Ace was game for it, but he found himself stonewalled by, well, _everyone_. They told him he should hang back with Stiles, catch his breath a minute, then the three of them were gone before Ace could argue.

He stared after them, mouth hanging open. “They _ditched_ me.”

Stiles clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t take it personally, son. You held your own admirably, but trust me when I say that you don’t have a prayer when it comes to hide and seek with those three.”

Ace looked at Stiles, bewildered.

Stiles gave him an enigmatic smile. “Derek, Aaron, and Laura all know these woods like the backs of their hands. You’d get lost in no time. But don’t feel bad… I would, too. That’s why I’m snack-boy.” Stiles jiggled the shoulder strap of the backpack he had, filled with bottled water and snacks.

That mollified Ace a little, and he fell in step beside Laura’s father.

“Enjoying your visit so far?” Stiles asked conversationally.

Ace naturally assumed it was a loaded question. “It’s not what I expected.”

Stiles laughed.

“Laura told me before we left Stanford that her family was intense. I didn’t really get what she meant. Now I do.”

“Yeah, Derek can be a trip.”

“So are you.”

Stiles grinned. “That’s probably one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me!”

“You know it’s probably weird that you take that as a compliment, right?”

Stiles shrugged. “Meh. My measuring stick for normal broke a long time ago.”

Casting for something else to talk about, Ace said, “So, Laura said you’re an investigator with the police department?”

“She did? Damnit. I was hoping to see your face when I pulled the ‘I can kill you and never get caught’ line.”

“I was suitably horrified, if that helps.”

“Yes, it does, thank you. And yep. Been doing it roughly twenty years now.”

“That’s cool… how’d you get into that line of work?”

Stiles waved Ace over to a tree and sat down in its shade, setting the backpack down next to him. Ace sat down facing him.

“I wanted to go into law enforcement because of my dad. Probably no surprise there. Actually, I wanted to be a cop like him.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Stiles hissed through his teeth. “That… Derek and I disagreed about my career path. It was one of the biggest fights we ever had, actually. I wanted to be a cop, and Derek was dead-set against it. He said it was too dangerous, which is _hilarious_ for _reasons_. You don’t even _know_ how ridiculous. I wasn’t too happy about him trying to tell me what to do with my life. I remember yelling at him that he couldn’t be the alpha of everything.” Stiles smirked sadly, like the memory still stung a little, even after all these years.

“But you didn’t become a cop,” Ace prompted.

“Nah. And it wasn’t Derek who made the final call on that. I did.”

“What changed your mind?”

Stiles gazed out into the trees, starting to smile in earnest. “Derek and I started talking about having children. And it made me think of all the times when I was little and I was scared to death my dad wouldn’t come home. I finally got why Derek was so freaked about me being a cop. He wasn’t trying to _control_ me, he was scared of _losing_ me. It sounds obvious, but I didn’t let myself see it from his perspective until that moment. I can be a stubborn son of a bitch when I want to be – especially when I’m trying to win an argument. Derek didn’t want to be at home not sure if I would get through the day alive. And I couldn’t imagine my kids sitting up all night wondering if I was coming home like I did when I was young.

“So I backed off on the cop thing and decided to do something else – still tied to law enforcement, but less on the front lines. I still get to catch the bad guys and protect people, I just don’t have to worry about getting shot doing it. That and I’ve always been good at piecing together a puzzle.”

“Well, it sounds like interesting work.”

“It is.”

“What does Derek do?”

Stiles leaned back against the tree. “You’ve seen what he does.” When Ace gave him a confused look, Stiles continued. “When Derek’s family died, he ended up with a lot of money from life insurance policies. Enough that he’d never have to work again. So he stayed home with the kids. Plus, keeping the pack running smoothly is a full-time job.”

Ignoring the weird ‘pack’ element (what ‘running’ needed to be done?, they were a family), Ace was bowled over at the new information. “Derek was a stay-at-home dad?”

“Yep.” Stiles peered at Ace. “You look surprised.”

“A little, yeah. He doesn’t really seem the type.” If anything, Stiles seemed more the kind of person to trade career for family and play the role of househusband.

“Well, that’s your fault for presuming traditional gender roles based on stereotypes,” Stiles answered with a sly smirk.

“Oh! No, I didn’t mean…”

Stiles laughed. “It’s all right. You’re not the first person blown away by Derek Hale, professional dad. But you know what? He was _damn_ good at it.”

Given that Ace was in love with Derek’s daughter… “I can’t really argue with the end results.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” Stiles smiled, and Ace returned it. That felt like a safe thing to smile about with Laura’s dad. Stiles didn’t immediately give him the stink-eye, so it must have been the right call.

“So how’d you end up taking Derek’s last name, if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve always been kind of curious how that gets decided when two guys get married.”

Something in Stiles’ expression went somber, not exactly sadness and not exactly anger, but echoes of both were there. “The Hales were an important family in this town once, and they were almost wiped out. I thought it was important for there to be Hales again.”

Ace got the distinct impression he was missing easily half the story behind that statement, but he was kind of getting used to that feeling when it came to Laura’s family.

Stiles cocked his head, considering Ace. “Laura really likes you.”

Ace stammered a little. “Well, uh… I hope so. Because I’m kind of crazy about her.”

That answer seemed to please Stiles. He hummed, nodded, and settled back more comfortably against the tree.

They fell into a silence that Ace daresay was comfortable. He picked up a pinecone and started prying off individual scales, just to have something to do with his hands.

“Derek’s wrong about me.”

The comment seemed to come out of nowhere. Ace looked up, confused.

“I mean about me not understanding how to be romantic,” Stiles clarified. “I get why he thinks that, but it’s his fault, in a way.

“Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you I have no trouble telling people what I’m thinking or feeling. I word-vomit, and it just comes out. If anything, I overshare. Cloaked in a lot of BS, so sometimes it’s hard to find the point of my rambling, but there you go. _Not_ talking is _not_ my problem.

“It’s just… when I look at Derek, I get flooded with all the things I want to say. He makes me feel so many things, and they get balled up and stuck in here,” he touched his chest, “and for the life of me, I just can’t get them out. I feel like it would all try to spill out together and not make any sense. Or I’d never be able to stop telling him everything once I started. I love him so much that it literally leaves me tongue-tied. And he doesn’t seem to have the same problem, that _asshole_ , so he says all these sweet things and I’m just standing there thinking the only way I could make him understand would be to crack open my chest.

“And you’d think that would go away or ease up after all these years, but it never has. He looks at me and it’s just this riot in my ribcage, and the only thing I can get out without falling down a rabbit hole are jokes and puns.”

Whoa. That was hardcore. Ace swallowed. “Uh… that’s… I’m not really sure why you told me that.”

Stiles smirked. “I’m telling you this because I suspect Laura is the same way. But I don’t want you to think she sucks at being romantic because she doesn’t feel it. If I had to guess, I’d say she feels more than she knows what to do with.”

Ace kind of loved that idea. “I appreciate you being concerned,” and he did, “but I’m not worried about it.”

Stiles looked surprised. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“No. I know she lo–cares about me. She might not say it with words, but she lets me know in her own way.” Then Ace silently prayed to every god past and present that Stiles didn’t ask for details, just _how_ Laura showed Ace she loved him. Neither of them could leave that conversation without severe emotional scars.

“Huh.” Stiles crossed his arms. “You know, for the hard time Derek always gives me about my epic failure at romance, I didn’t think it could be that simple.”

“It is,” Ace assured him. “Derek’s probably just messing with you.”

“I would not doubt _that_.” Stiles gave that a little more thought and started to grin like a madman. “Ha! I can’t wait to get him back for years of making me think I wasn’t good enough in the candlelit-dinner department.”

“Just don’t tell him you got the idea from me,” Ace pleaded. “I’m pretty sure he’d kill me if I caused any discord in your marriage.”

“Oh, _trust me_ , the kind of revenge I’m thinking… well, Derek would thank you for it.” Stiles winked.

Ace might need therapy after this week for all the times he’d been made to think about Laura’s dads having sex. “You’re kind of evil, you know that, right?”

“Just keep that in mind if you ever think of making enemies of us.” And it was obviously a joke, he didn’t _mean_ that, but hell if it didn’t sound like a threat the way Stiles said it.

It struck Ace, at that moment, that he was out in the woods alone with at least three Hales that might want to see him dead just a little bit. He should have told his parents he loved them before he left for Beacon Hills.

“You know,” Stiles mused aloud, “it was a hard road getting Derek to the point where he could be like this, all romantic and shit. After everything that happened, his family… he was _really_ damaged for a _really_ long time. Just the fact Derek still has a romantic side… I bitch about it, but honestly, I’m _grateful_.” Stiles smiled slowly, like he alone was sharing in a private joke. “And sometimes I kind of think that he’s making up for when he was a raging asshole.”

“Because he’s all kittens and rainbows now,” Ace muttered under his breath.

Stiles cackled. “You have _no_ idea, kiddo.”

If Derek Hale was even scarier back then than he was now, Ace truly marveled that he and Stiles had gotten together at all. Stiles must have had a kink for fear-boners. Yet another delightfully-scarring fact that Ace did not need to know.

But it was kind of sweet to think that Derek Hale had been broken and Stiles fixed him. And Ace wasn’t stupid. Perfectly fine people didn’t cleave themselves to damaged goods. Meaning Stiles had probably been at least a little broken, too. It was cute that they had found each other. Made each other better.

If they hadn’t, Ace wouldn’t have Laura, so he was obviously a huge fan of whatever that journey had entailed, the road from Derek and Stiles then to Derek and Stiles now.

Quicksilver threats aside, it was kind of nice hanging out with Stiles. He was witty. Mostly kind. And he didn’t seem to be anti-Ace so much as pro-Laura, and that included wanting anything that would make his little girl happy. And if one of those things happened to be Ace, well…

Yeah… Ace could work with Stiles. Derek, on the other hand…

Stiles looked half-primed to doze off against the tree when a noise in the woods, nothing of interest (in Ace’s opinion), pulled Stiles upright and snapped him to attention immediately. He looked around, suddenly alert. One hand drifted toward the backpack, like he thought whatever had unsettled him could be dealt with using a granola bar.

The change was stark and strange, to say the least. “What is it?”

Before Stiles could answer, Laura, her father, and her brother came into view. They did not look like they were having fun. Their faces were stony, sharing a nearly-identical scowl, as they marched swiftly toward Stiles and Ace. Laura and Aaron were in front with Derek practically herding them from behind, casting dark glowers over his shoulder back into the woods.

Stiles was on his feet the next second. Ace glanced up at Stiles and did a double-take when he saw his face. For the first time, Stiles had a cold, steely look on his face fit to match Derek’s. He looked formidable. Like he was someone you wouldn’t want to piss off. It gave Ace a sinking feeling that the happy-go-lucky guy he’d seen so far was a front, a cover. And whatever was going on, it tore that wall down but quick.

Ace scrambled to his feet, confused and worried.

“What’s up?” Stiles asked Derek when the two groups reunited.

Derek scanned the trees intently. “Unexpected visitors.”

“Hide or hair variety?”

“Hair.”

“Anyone we know?”

“No.”

Ace looked between the fathers, utterly lost.

Stiles’ brow furrowed.

“Take the kids home,” Derek bade. “I’ll deal with this.”

“Call Allison,” Stiles countered. “If they’re her ilk, they should have checked in with her. _If_ they’re on the level.”

Derek gave a curt nod and began to pull out his cell phone.

Stiles bent down to scoop up the backpack, shoulder it, and crowded the kids back in the direction of the house. “All right, hike’s over.”

Laura and Aaron moved without question.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Ace asked.

Stiles grabbed his arm just a little too tightly and gave him a humorless smile that did nothing to reassure him. If anything, it had the opposite effect. “This is the time to be quiet and follow orders, sport.”

Ace gaped, dumbstruck, but then Laura was taking his hand and pulling him after her. “Come on, baby. Dad will take care of everything.”

“Take care of _what_?” Ace asked as he stumbled to catch up and keep up. No one bothered to answer his question.


	6. Chapter 6

Things got _weird_ at the Hale house.

For one, Ace, Laura, and Aaron were sequestered in the house in something no one was _calling_ house arrest, but it sure felt like it. They definitely weren’t allowed to go outside. Ace rankled at the confinement on principle, because he was too old to be grounded. And by parents that weren’t even his, no less.

But Laura and Aaron acted like it was SOP. They bowed to the new restrictions like they had a lot of practice with this kind of thing. Like they were one of those weird families during the Cold War that did atomic bomb drills. Duck and cover, pretend we’re getting nuked, no biggie.

Within an hour, cars were pulling up to the house, and Ace watched out a second-story window as most of the pack showed up and immediately vanished into the woods (presumably to meet up with Derek). Scott, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, and Jackson all arrived and ran off into the woods like they’d all been at home waiting by their phones for just such a call and no one had a job that might keep them from the party.

Stiles was on the phone a lot, and Ace only caught the name “Allison” one time before the Hale noticed Ace watching and retired to someplace private to take his calls.

In short, it was really fucking weird.

Ace went in search of answers. Since Stiles clearly wasn’t going to be forthcoming, he went in search of the Hale siblings.

He found Aaron and Laura in the library, perched in a pair of reading chairs angled slightly toward each other. Laura had her feet tucked up underneath her while Aaron was chewing on his thumbnail. They both kept stealing glances at the windows and the front door (just visible at an angle through living room and foyer).

“Hey,” Ace greeted.

Both looked up at him.

“What’s up?”

Aaron flicked a look toward Laura, who pasted on a half-smile and said, “Nothing, just kicking back with a good book.”

Ace’s eyebrows rose. “That would be a lot more convincing if either one of you had a book in your hands.”

Aaron and Laura both looked down at their empty laps guiltily.

“Come on, guys,” Ace sighed, “someone tell me what’s going on here.”

Aaron held up his hands in a gesture of ‘not it’. Laura scowled at her brother, then she frowned. “It’s nothing to be worried about.”

“Really? Because just about everyone right now seems to disagree.”

Laura’s expression shuttered, then she sagged. “Look, it’s just… we get hunters sometimes.”

Aaron gave his sister a careful look. 

Laura kept her eyes on Ace. “The land around this house is private property, and then it bleeds into the preserve, and we have our fair share of trespassers out here. Sometimes they’re hunters. It’s illegal to hunt in the preserve, but idiots try anyway, and they’re the kind of dumbasses that will shoot at anything that moves. It’s just dangerous to be out there when there are morons with guns prowling around.” Laura unfolded from the chair, went to Ace, and pulled him by the hand back to the chair. “It’ll be all right, though, I promise. Dad and the pack will take care of it.” She nudged him into the seat and immediately curled up on his lap. She wasn’t really tiny enough for it, the chair by far too small, but it didn’t stop either one of them.

Laura’s explanation for the strange activity around the house made sense, but still…

“You two seem awfully worried about it,” Ace observed.

Laura looked pleadingly at her brother.

Aaron huffed. “Did you miss the part about morons with guns?”

“Has anyone ever gotten hurt before?”

Laura nodded carefully.

“Are you kidding me? Someone got shot before? Who?”

Laura chewed on her lip. “Aunt Allison’s dad. He was a hunter, too, but he did it legally… you know, he went to places that allowed it and, uh, had hunting seasons. One time he was helping the pack deal with some of the aforementioned morons and…” Laura trailed off and shrugged stiltedly.

“Did he die?”

Laura nodded.

“ _Holy shit_.”

“So Dad and Pop go to defcon two when a hunter is spotted and me and Aaron are put on lockdown until they’re dealt with.” Laura smiled down at Ace. “You should be flattered Dad and Pop are being overprotective of you, too.”

That was one way to look at it, Ace supposed. They obviously wanted him to stay alive, which was something he’d sincerely questioned a couple of hours ago. So, silver lining? And knowing there had been a _fatality_ once would certainly explain everyone’s reaction.

“Should someone be calling the cops?” Ace asked.

“They might,” Aaron nodded. “If the pack can’t handle it. Most hunters hightail it, though. Word gets around in those circles that the Hales have an in with the local sheriff’s office.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to for venison,” Ace noted.

Laura shrugged. “Like we said. Idiots.”

“ _Armed_ idiots,” Aaron stressed.

“‘Murica,” Laura drawled.

Despite the tension, everyone chuckled. Albeit tensely.

Silence fell over the trio, but it was far from peaceful. No one said it, but they were all braced for the sound of gunfire.

*********

Night fell, and the pack was still not back. Aaron and Laura started a pacing circuit, making the rounds of all the downstairs windows and peering out into the night. Ace had to focus on his phone not to feel nauseated by their laps. At midnight, Stiles finally ordered the kids to go upstairs and go to bed, amid grumbles of protest. Ace, who was still _not_ one of the Hale children, found himself sent to bed all the same.

He wasn’t sure what woke him up at four in the morning, but he suspected the parade of haunted house rumors and woods crawling with armed hunters the last few days had something to do with it. He lay in bed about fifteen minutes before he decided the odds he’d fall back asleep were slim and he was a little hungry.

Since he’d been given permission to roam the house at night, on the condition he was quiet, Ace got up, slipped on a pair of sweat pants, eased open the guest bedroom door, and tip-toed down the hall.

He was nearly at the bottom of the stairs when he froze. Stiles was asleep on the living room couch, one end table lamp casting slanted light across his features. He was curled awkwardly against one arm of the couch, like he’d started off slouched sideways on the sofa then sank as sleep took him and never really got to a comfortable position. His head was turned to the side and down too sharply, shoulders tensely hunched, and his arms were curled over his chest, his cell phone held in one loose hand against his sternum. He’d clearly fallen asleep waiting for Derek to come home.

Ace stood five steps from the ground floor a moment, torn. The stairs spit out between the living room and the kitchen with no door between the two. He wasn’t sure he could be quiet enough to rummage around for a snack without waking Stiles. After all, he had been warned what light sleepers the Hales were.

As he stood there a moment debating his next move, the front door knob quietly turned and the door swung open just enough for Derek to slip through the crack. For some unfathomable reason, Derek didn’t have a shirt on (Ace _clearly_ remembered him wearing one on their hike). He was covered in brown smears that Ace at first took for blood, but there were no wounds on Derek’s unfairly flawless skin, so it must have been dirt. He had a bundle of sticks in one hand, wrapped in cloth (perhaps his shirt), which he set down near the wall with soft wooden clacks.

Derek shut the door behind him and turned. His eyes went immediately to Stiles.

Ace felt like a voyeur, but didn’t know how to retreat without being noticed as Derek moved toward his sleeping husband. He stood next to the couch a moment, then he sat carefully on the edge to watch Stiles sleep. Something in his expression that had been harrowed seconds ago melted. He reached up and carded his fingers through Stiles’ hair. Stiles stirred and the phone slipped out of his limp hand. Derek plucked it off Stiles’ chest and set it down on the coffee table only to resume his vigil.

It felt like a tender, private moment that Ace shouldn’t be watching. Especially when Derek leaned forward and ghosted his nose along Stiles’ neck. He took a couple of deep breaths, eyes closed, then he sighed and rested his forehead against Stiles’ shoulder.

A happy sleep-sound hummed out of Stiles’ throat, and Ace could see Derek smile.

Then Derek sat up, touched Stiles’ forearm lightly, and stood.

He went directly to the kitchen, passing by the stairs without any indication that he knew Ace was standing there like a weirdo.

Ace _continued_ to stand there as Derek went to the sink, wet a washcloth, and swiped at some of the grime on his body. It was a half-ass effort at best – Derek threw the cloth down on the counter after only a few marginally successful passes – then he went to the island and sat on one of the stools.

Ace almost squeaked when Derek lifted his head and his eyes went immediately to Ace in a way that told the young man Derek had known he was there the whole time. 

Derek sat, unmoving, for a solid twenty seconds before he lifted his eyebrows expectantly. When Ace didn’t understand the browspeak, Derek bit back a sigh and beckoned Ace over with his hand.

Ace would really rather not, but turning and fleeing seemed like a bad idea. With a swallow, he padded softly into the kitchen. He came to a stop on the opposite side of the island and stood awkwardly.

Derek stared at him.

Desperate for something to do, Ace went to the refrigerator and got a bottle of water, which he turned and offered to Derek. Derek eyed it a second before he took it, twisted off the cap, and drank nearly all of it in one go.

Feeling slightly less targeted, Ace sat down on the stool across from Derek, waiting for the other man to speak first.

When Derek finally did, voice hushed and low so as not to wake Stiles in the next room, Ace was baffled. “If you want to drive back to Stanford tomorrow, that’s fine. I can drop Laura off later this week.”

“I… what?”

“If you want to leave, you can.”

Ace stammered, feeling like he was being tested. “I don’t understand. Are you telling me to leave?”

Derek’s unreadable expression flickered. “You don’t want to?”

“No…?”

One of Derek’s eyebrows twitched higher than the other. Ace could practically hear it asking ‘is that a question?’

“Did I do something wrong?” Ace ventured.

Derek’s mouth had a spasm that could almost be called a smirk. “You’re asking if _you_ did something…”

“Well… yeah. I mean, if you’re asking me to leave…”

“I’m not…” Derek huffed, frustrated. “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m telling you it’s okay if you don’t want to stay here after today.”

“Because of the hunters?”

Derek stiffened and his eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

Skipping town because of some illegal deer hunters seemed extreme. “But they’re gone, right? Laura said you and the pack would take care of them.”

“Yes, they’re gone.” Derek sounded confused, and Derek seemed like the kind of guy to find confusion very annoying.

“Well, then… I guess I don’t really understand why we’re having this conversation.”

“No, you don’t.”

Ace _felt_ like asking what exactly he was supposed to do with that. If it had been Stiles, he might have. But Derek was too terrifying to push. He would no sooner bitch-slap a saber-tooth tiger than cop an attitude with Derek Hale. It left him feeling flustered, not sure where he stood. Did Derek want him gone or not?

A sound almost like a growl rose from Derek, crackling and edgy. “It’s not that I don’t _want_ Laura to have a… a _Stiles_.”

Maybe later Ace would think it was sweet how Derek had made everything a partner was synonymous with ‘Stiles’, but for the moment he was waiting for the rest of whatever Derek had to say. Because that sentence screamed ‘but’ at the end.

“It’s just…” Derek paused, looking almost pained. “That caliber of human is rare.”

That was a fucking peculiar thing to say. And the hinted slight it contained was not missed.

“And you don’t think I’m one of them,” Ace said with care, trying not to sound as hurt or angry as he felt. Because a part of him honestly believed Laura’s dad would reach across the island and toss him through a window.

Derek eyed Ace a moment. It felt invasive, like Derek could somehow see the beating of his heart and judged every shuddering thud.

“I hope you are, Ace.” A blink-and-you-miss-it tenderness swept across his features. “For Laura.”

He may hope for the best when it came to his daughter, but something told Ace that Derek Hale was not one to hold his breath. He would hold out the hope Ace was that knight in shining armor, but the minute Ace proved himself a scumbag of any kind Derek would not be the least bit surprised. Ace wondered just what it would take to prove himself to Laura’s father.

With a silent sigh, Derek stood. “It’s late. You should go back to bed.”

“In a minute.” He wasn’t hungry at the moment (the aura of a threat that seemed to linger around Derek had killed his appetite), but he knew the minute he was back upstairs his stomach would start growling.

Derek gave a half-nod and walked back into the living room.

Ace didn’t _mean_ to watch, but it was really hard not to.

Derek knelt next to the couch and tracked the back of his fingers along Stiles’ jaw. “Stiles.”

Stiles grumbled and twisted into even more of a pretzel.

Derek scoffed affectionately. “You’re going to regret that in the morning.”

Stiles stirred.

“Stiles, wake up… time to go to bed.”

“Mmmm… beeed… D’rek?” Stiles opened his eyes, took in Derek kneeling beside him, then did this lunge maneuver that had him draped over Derek’s shoulders, arms wrapped around his neck. “Hey,” he breathed happily.

Derek returned the embrace, combing his fingers into Stiles’ hair and nuzzling one side of his face. Ace kind of marveled at the sight. The only time Derek Hale ever truly looked gentle or even remotely tamed was when he was with Stiles. “I’m okay. Come on, let’s go to bed.”

“Kay,” Stiles mumbled as Derek pulled him to his feet. He let Derek lead him by the wrist, complacent and tractable until he started up the stairs and noticed Ace in the kitchen. He pulled to a stop. “Ace… what are you doing up, son?”

“Sorry, I just wanted a bite to eat.” Ace glanced up at Derek warily, unsure if he should say anything about their little chat. Derek’s expression was guarded, giving away nothing.

“All right,” Stiles replied around a yawn. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“I won’t… good night.”

Stiles nodded and let Derek take him up the stairs, slipping his wrist free to interlace their fingers instead.


	7. Chapter 7

Broken sleep made for late mornings, and Ace was doing an admirable job paying for his 4am sojourn by sleeping in the next morning. Long enough that he attracted attention. He was woken by the sensation of someone tugging at the covers by the side of the bed, and he began to smile because he knew without looking that it was Laura.

Instead of throwing back his covers and letting in cold air like an asshole, Laura joined him in bed in the most adorable way possible. She would crouch down by the side of the bed, lift up one end of the covers, and slither inside until she had snuggled up against him. It reminded him of how a puppy would worm its way into his bed, all wiggly and happy.

True to form, Laura belly-crawled up toward him under the covers. Ace scooted over to make room for her, even as he muttered with his eyes still closed, “Your parents are going to kill me if they catch us in the same bed.”

Laura snorted, pressed into his side, and lay down half on top of him. “No, they won’t. Pop told me to come check and make sure you were still alive.” She pressed her nose into his neck and breathed deep.

Ace wrapped his arms around her. “I doubt this was what he had in mind.”

Laura snickered and rested her head on his chest. “Then he should have been more specific. He knows better.”

“Knows that you’ll take a mile if given an inch, you mean.”

“Exactly.” She smoothed her hand over the material of his t-shirt, her hand warm through the fabric. “You okay?”

“Just didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Dad said you were prowling around when he got in.”

Ace made a noncommittal noise. He still didn’t know what to think about that weird conversation he had with Laura’s dad last night. Truthfully, Derek Hale in general was a mystery to him. Stiles he had figured out… at least enough to know how to navigate around him. _Derek_ , though. Ace got the feeling he was missing a huge piece of the puzzle that was Derek Hale, and without it he didn’t have a prayer of understanding how to approach the man.

“Ace?” Laura asked gently, lifting her head to look down at him. A furrow of concern wrinkled her brow. “What is it? You’re broody, and you don’t do broody.”

“What is it that everyone’s not telling me?” He didn’t even know he was going to say that until it tumbled out of his mouth.

Laura froze.

“Something’s weird around here,” Ace continued, “and I get the feeling everyone but me knows what it is.” When Laura looked about to speak, troubled, he hastened to add, “I’m not saying it’s anything _bad_. I’m not suggesting anything bad about your home or your family, all I’m saying is something doesn’t add up.” He looked intently at Laura. “And I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Laura pulled away to sit up in bed, facing him but eyes cast to the side. She looked anxious. That was a strange look on her; Laura was usually all confidence and strength. Seeing her uncertain, and knowing it was his fault, made his insides twist.

“Laura…”

“I promise it’s nothing bad.” Laura fidgeted. “You’re not… _wrong_. There’s _something_.” She looked back at the bedroom door, like she was looking for one of her family members to come to her rescue.

Rescue from _Ace_.

“Baby,” he quickly sat up and reached for her. “Hey… whatever it is, it’s okay.”

Laura looked back at him. “I can’t tell you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t take the risk that you…” Laura stopped and shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I should have known this would happen. I guess I didn’t really think it through. Dad said I was… I rushed into this. I was just so excited for you to meet my family.” Laura started to inch toward the edge of the bed. “If you want to leave, I’ll understand.”

Ace caught Laura by the shoulders and held her in place. “Why are all of you so damn convinced I’m going to leave you?” It hurt that they thought so little of him. It made him angry that they were so certain he would run.

“It’s not easy to love a Hale,” Laura mumbled.

“Well, that’s bullshit.”

Laura looked up at him, startled.

“Laura… loving you is literally the easiest thing I’ve ever done. It’s as natural as breathing. There’s nothing you could tell me that would change that.”

She smiled tentatively. “I love you, too. I love you so much, Ace… but I can’t tell you this. Not yet. One day I will, I promise. But it’s too soon for… that.” Laura leaned toward him hopefully. “Can that be good enough? Can you live with that?”

Did he have a choice? “You will tell me someday?”

“When we’ve been together longer, when I’m sure you won’t… leave… I will. I swear.”

Ace hated knowing there was a secret between them, obviously a big one, but he hated even more learning that Laura was afraid he’d leave her when he learned the truth, whatever it was. He hated that she didn’t believe he’d stay. He thought they were solid together. He thought they were both in this for the long haul. Finding out Laura was worried he would break up with her over whatever this family secret was…

_That_ was crushing.

He wanted to know what the Hales were keeping from him, but he wanted Laura’s trust more. He could live with the not knowing if that was what it took to convince Laura he wasn’t going anywhere.

Because he might not know the big secret, but he did know beyond a doubt that Laura loved him.

He could live with that.

“Okay…” Ace agreed, tugged her closer until he’d gathered her up in his arms. Laura curled her arms around him and nuzzled her face against his neck. “Take whatever time you need, because I’m not going anywhere.”

Laura squeezed him tight, and for the first time he thought it was a little bit to keep him from getting away. Which was a one-eighty from normal, because Ace had always felt like there was something wild and untamable about Laura Hale… if anyone was going to break away and run free, he was sure it would be her.

*********

Ace was starting to accept that getting weird vibes was just part and parcel of staying with the Hales. When Laura finally dragged him downstairs, Aaron and Derek were both giving him uneasy looks like they’d actually heard boyfriend and girlfriend talking from the ground floor (which was impossible). Stiles looked between his son and husband, huffing petulantly and muttering about not having bat-ears and how someone better fill him in.

Aaron wolfed down breakfast and told his parents he was going into town to hang out with Sam. Otherwise known as that lucky bastard who was getting the kid-friendly version of the Hale family, as Ace had begun to think of Sam.

Ace was privately hoping he and Laura could get out of the house together, too. Alone.

That hope was quickly dashed. Laura’s eyes lighted on Ace after she put her plate in the sink, intent on whisking him away to safety, when Derek stepped into her path and said simply, “We need to talk. Come with me.”

Laura opened her mouth to argue, but one look at her father’s face and she resigned herself to her fate. It was kind of mystifying to see Laura acquiesce so quickly, when the Laura Hale Ace knew would not back down for anything. Derek herded Laura up the stairs, no doubt to a bedroom with a door they could shut in Ace’s proverbial face. Stiles followed close behind.

Which left Ace alone on the ground floor of the Hale house.

He ended up looking at the photographs hung on the walls, frames he hadn’t taken the time yet to study but had wanted to from the moment he stepped into the house. It was the side of Laura he’d never seen, since she kept her home life such a secret at school.

There was a wedding photo of Stiles and Derek, both men much younger and wearing tuxedos. The photographer caught a moment when Stiles was laughing at something, mouth open wide and eyes crinkled at the corners, while Derek looked on, a little bit amused but _a lot_ adoring. A photo of Laura as an infant asleep on Derek’s bare chest hung next to one of Stiles with Laura dressed as a fuzzy wolf cub on Halloween (unless Stiles dressed up as a pirate on the regular). There was a picture of Derek in the yard throwing Laura into the air, the scene caught mid-toss with Laura so high that Ace felt a pang of anxiety.

Ace shifted, the light on the glass moved, and a scowling face that was not his own reflected back at him.

Ace yelped and turned sharply to find Derek standing behind him, glaring quietly.

“Oh my god!” Ace yelped.

For half a heartbeat, Ace thought Derek was going to smile. Then he didn’t. “Come with me.”

That felt ominous. “Umm…” he glanced back toward the stairs, hoping for Laura to come to his rescue. She and Derek hadn’t been upstairs long enough for any kind of serious conversation, so he just assumed she would be right behind her dad.

“Laura’s not coming,” Derek answered the unspoken question, voice sharp. “You and I need to have a _talk_.”

But _why_? What had he done?

Without waiting for a response, Derek moved toward the front door, opened it, and stepped outside.

Ace had little choice, really, but to follow.

He continued to follow Derek as he led him out into the woods, and Ace became more and more certain Derek was taking him out into the middle of nowhere to kill him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done that decided the Hale patriarch, but he had clearly made up his mind to put an end to their little Thoreau problem. Laura would go on to court her visiting nobleman and become the most badass princess in the history of – 

“Would you calm down?” Derek practically snarled, head cocked back toward him like he was listening. “You’re going to have a heart attack.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

At that, Derek stopped and turned to face Ace. They were in the middle of the woods, far enough from the house that Ace wouldn’t stand a chance of bolting and outrunning Derek. Derek Hale had freakish athleticism for a man his age, and he’d used just about every opportunity this vacation to prove that point to Ace.

Derek frowned, and it looked absolutely thunderous. “You think I’m going to kill you?”

“Maybe? I mean, why else would you bring me all the way out here to have ‘a talk’?”

Derek’s expression pinched. “I just wanted to talk to you privately without anyone eavesdropping.”

Which apparently necessitated a trip into the woods. Nice to know Ace wasn’t the only one who felt like the walls had ears at the Hale house.

“Okay,” Ace ventured tentatively. “Then what did you want to ‘talk’ to me about?” The word ‘talk’ was definitely in quotations, because Ace was still fifty percent certain he was going to meet a grisly end on the Hale property.

Derek scowled, and if Ace weren’t attached to his intestines he might have asked why _he_ was getting the business end of some serious glowering when _Derek_ was the one who’d called this woodland meeting.

“Stiles should have taken you,” Derek grumbled to himself. “It would have been a lot easier to have this conversation with Laura.”

Ace perked up at the mention of Laura.

“Look…” Derek redirected his glare into the trees, like he couldn’t wipe the angry face off his features so the best he could do was point it somewhere else. “You know this family is keeping something from you.”

Ace’s gut told him to tread very, very carefully.

“You’re clearly not stupid.” Ace couldn’t even bask in the compliment before Derek plowed on. “But this _secret_ …” Derek huffed, searching for the right words. “It’s not something to be taken lightly. When you _know_ , everything changes. You won’t see the world the same way ever again.”

_Holy fuck_. What _was_ this secret?

“And it’s dangerous to be part of this. It’s gotten people killed. I’m not saying that to intimidate you, it’s a _fact_.”

Ace swallowed hard.

“We are very, _very_ careful about who we let into our confidence. It’s literally a matter of life and death for us.” Derek pursed his lips, eyebrows furrowed. “But eventually… there comes a time when we have to decide if we can let someone new in.”

Ace couldn’t have spoken, even if he knew what to say.

“Stiles is talking to Laura right now, telling her that this call is hers to make. That if _she_ wants you to know the truth, then we won’t stop her from telling you.”

“Okay… that’s…” possibly good news, but Derek didn’t look like it was cause for celebration. And it also begged the question, “Why did you have to haul me out here to tell me that?”

In an instant, Derek’s look turned _dangerous_. It took all of Ace’s willpower not to take a step backward. “Because I don’t want Laura to hear what I’m about to tell you.” Derek took a step closer. “I want the best for my daughter. And if that’s you – if you can be her Stiles – then _great_. Welcome aboard. But if she takes the risk on trusting you and she’s _wrong_ about you… I don’t expect you to stay with her if you can’t handle the truth, but I _do_ expect you to keep your mouth shut.”

Ace’s mouth jawed open, absent of words but letting out a pitiful squeaking noise.

“You seem like a smart kid, Ace. So don’t go and do anything stupid. I lost my family once, and I will do _whatever_ I have to do to make sure I don’t lose my family again.”

There was no subtext to that statement, it was an outright _threat_. Derek Hale was honestly threatening to kill him.

“You’re…” Ace began to say, then wisely bit his tongue.

Derek’s right eyebrow twitched upward. “Insane?”

Ace winced when Derek guessed the exact word Ace had almost let fly.

“No.” Derek’s dark smirk did not plead his case. “Just scared to death of losing everyone I love. _Again_. I survived that once. I couldn’t do it twice.” Derek narrowed his eyes at Ace. “When an animal is scared, they become vicious. If I lost Stiles and my kids, I’d have nothing to lose. Nothing to stop me.”

Time out, hold the fuck up.

“Hold up,” Ace lifted a hand to forestall another direct threat. Derek glanced at the hand derisively but went quiet to let Ace talk. “You’re talking about someone _killing_ Laura because of _me_.” He paused to let the ludicrousness of that statement sink in. “How could you think I could even _do_ that? I _couldn’t_ … I would go out of my mind if anything happened to her.” He was talking stark raving mad, bat-shit crazy levels of off his rocker.

“You say that now, but you don’t know…”

That was it, Ace had finally hit his breaking point. He couldn’t take it anymore. “Fine, maybe I don’t know what this huge secret is, but do you really think I would have put up with _everything_ this visit if I wasn’t head over heels in love with her?”

Derek’s facial muscles twitched.

“I don’t care if she… if she’s a _Martian_ and you are all the vanguard of a planetary invasion. I’m… she’s _it_ for me, don’t you get that? And I would never do anything to –”

“Shut up,” Derek snapped lowly, head tilting to one side in apparent distraction. Like Ace’s speech wasn’t even worth hearing.

“I will _not_ shut up, you think I would purposefully endanger Laura –”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Derek snarled, crowding suddenly closer to Ace and effectively silencing him by physical intimidation. Ace snapped his jaw shut and watched, confused as hell, as Derek turned and cocked his head, eyes scanning the trees.

Like a poor schmuck laying eyes on Medusa, Derek’s body went rigid all at once.

“What?” Ace dared to ask.

“Get back to the house.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Go now. _Run_.” When Ace continued to stand there, Derek planted a hand in the center of his chest and shoved him.

Ace stumbled backward a couple of steps, thrown off balance… then he turned and started to jog back toward the house. Because Derek sounded _serious_. In the sense that Derek had just been standing there threatening to kill Ace, but in the very next moment he was not the most dangerous thing out in the woods.

Ace was just beginning to lengthen his stride when he heard noises behind him. Unfamiliar voices, a twang-twang and shick-shick, then Derek shouting in anger. Anger and _pain_.

Ace slid to a halt and turned to look.

Two men with crossbows were emerging from the trees like a demented Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, their weapons held at the ready. Derek…

Derek was staggering on his feet, two arrows buried in his belly. He stumbled backward a step then his knees buckled. Derek Hale went down in a heap on the leaf-strewn forest floor.

_Shit, shit, shit_.

Ace didn’t even think. If he had, he would have known he was being an idiot. These crazy assholes were armed, they’d shot Derek with fucking crossbows. If he had a rational thought in his head, he would have run like hell.

Instead, he raced back to where Derek had fallen onto his side, curled around the two arrows protruding from his stomach. Ace dropped to his knees next to Derek, hands immediately reaching for him. “ _Derek_!?”

“ _Get out of here_ ,” Derek growled, grimacing while his eyes, bright with pain, watched the two men coming for him.

“Oh my god, they shot you!” Ace stared down in horror at the two wooden arrows disappearing into Derek’s flesh, the shafts soaked in blood. He should worry about the men that put them there, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the arrows embedded in Derek’s gut. He’d never seen someone hurt like that before. It didn’t exist in his safe world of football, college classes, parties, his parents… Holy fucking shit, he was looking at actual _attempted murder_. Not play-pretend violence on television that he used to think he was so tough for not even flinching at, no matter how gory. Fuck, this was _real_ , it was _horrifying_ , and his muscles were frozen.

“One of the pets,” one stranger drawled.

A hand landed heavy and hard on Ace’s shoulder.

It broke the terror-induced immobility in his limbs. It made him feel more wild animal than human, propelled by primeval reflexes. Without thinking, Ace twisted and jumped to his feet, landing a fist to the man’s jaw in the process. The hunter reeled back at the blow while his buddy aimed his weapon at Ace. Ace squared himself for combat, eying both men and trying to decide who would make a move on him first.

His heart was hammering and his vision narrowed – the trees disappeared around their attackers – but he couldn’t make himself run. Derek was hurt. Ace wouldn’t abandon him to these would-be killers. There was a now and after… now Derek was alive. If Ace fled, he felt down in his bones that Derek would be dead after. A senseless part of his brain said him leaving would be the divide between now and after. He _couldn’t_. He just couldn’t.

“Don’t throw your life away on account of this filthy animal,” douchebag number two sneered at him.

Ace bristled and braced himself for a fight. He’d been in his fair share of fights in high school, the jock crowd not usually being the brightest. Ace was a man among monkeys in that respect. Still, his friends got into shit, threw punches without thinking, and Ace backed them up when he had to. With fists, sometimes. He wasn’t afraid of a fight.

He should be afraid of _this_ fight, but something in his brain just shut off and wouldn’t let him comprehend how scared he was. It would paralyze him. He couldn’t afford that. He could think about how stupid he was being later… if he lived to see a later.

Ace clenched his hands into tight fists at his side as he stood between Derek and the strangers. His message was clear. If they wanted Derek, they had to go through Ace.

Douchebag one rubbed his jaw and glared at Ace. “We don’t want you, dumbass. Walk away while you still can.”

“Stay the fuck away from him!” Ace spat. Derek might scare the shit out of him, he might have a grudge the size of Texas about the boy dating his daughter, but he was Laura’s _father_. He couldn’t just leave him to these maniacs. Family was everything to the Hales. Laura would never forgive him if Derek died because Ace ran like a coward.

“Shit, they corrupt them fast,” d-bag two hissed in disgust.

“You’re making a big mistake here, kid.”

“Ace, _go_ ,” Derek barked from the ground.

“I said _shut up_ ,” Ace snapped back, sparing a fleeting glance at Derek. Derek looked stunned for a moment, and it was oddly satisfying.

“Have it your way, kid.”

Then both men jumped him.

He supposed it was some small mercy that they didn’t just fill him full of arrows like they had Derek. Ace wasn’t sure why they didn’t. He didn’t really care. If they wanted to settle this hand-to-hand, so be it. Ace was no slouch in a fistfight.

The problem was, there were two of them, and they were _better_. Like they did this fight club kind of shit on the weekends for kicks. Ace held his own pretty damn well, landed his fair share of hits, but they were too good. Every strike that connected tore Ace down a little more. He was busted and bleeding and _losing_ , shit, he was losing.

Then one of them clobbered him over the head with their crossbow, and Ace blacked out.


	8. Chapter 8

The first thing Ace knew was pain. In his stomach, throbbing in his face, exploding in his head, burning on his knuckles. Damnit, everything _hurt_. He was lying on a hard surface, unforgiving and uncomfortable. For a minute, he thought he took a hard tackle in a game. He felt like he’d been rolled in a rock tumbler. Maybe went over Niagara Falls in one of those barrels people always talk about. Shit, coach was pulling him for the rest of the game for sure, because there was no way in hell he didn’t have a concussion.

Then he heard the clack of heavy wood and metal hinges creaking. That’s when he remembered he was not at a football game.

Ace pried open his eyes (or rather, his eye… one was swollen shut) and only had a few minutes to note he was in a small concrete room, like a storm cellar storage closet, when a wooden door pulled open and two very familiar assholes stood framed within it.

“Watch the ash line,” douchebag one scolded his partner as douchebag two scoffed and took an exaggerated step over the threshold into the tiny holding cell. Douchebag one remained outside the room, blocking the doorway and standing with his crossbow slung almost casually over one shoulder in silent warning.

Ace almost scrambled to his hands and knees to retreat from the asshole who’d beaten him up (probably would have if his reflexes weren’t so dulled from being knocked unconscious), but douchebag two did not pay Ace any mind. He passed right by him to…

Derek.

From where Ace was lying unmoving on the floor, he saw Derek slumped in the corner, the arrows still protruding from his gut. Derek looked like shit. He was pasty and sweating, breathing labored, and he looked like moving was not up to him anymore. His limbs appeared to be dead weights, his head canted back to use the wall for support.

Douchebag two knelt before Derek and flicked the fletching of one arrow with a callused finger. “Like ‘em? Rowan wood arrows,” he swiped a finger along the exposed length and examined the faint trace of purple left behind, “coated in wolfsbane. Not enough to kill you, of course, but that wasn’t the point, now was it? You’re no good as bait if you’re dead.” Without warning, douchebag two gripped an arrow and twisted. Derek yowled and twitched. It was all Ace could to do stop himself from retching.

“Still,” Douchebag two drawled as he released the arrow, “give it long enough and it’ll kill you, eventually. Let’s hope your precious pack comes to try and save you before that happens.”

Derek snarled at the man.

“Now, now… it’s your own fault. This could have been quicker for you. Not _painless_ , but we wouldn’t have had to drag this out and resort to taking hostages if your puppies hadn’t run the rest of our group out of town. Guess it was a good thing me and Ricardo were holed up at the old train depot when your dogs swept through this miserable burg. That place hasn’t been your den in _years_ , but as Max likes to say, leave no stone unturned.”

“ _Shut up_ , Darius,” Ricardo hissed from the open door. “No one gives a shit about your villain speeches. You wanted to gloat, you did, let’s _go_. The others will be back soon.”

Darius sighed. “Such a shame… he has no sense of _pageantry_ , you know?” With that, Darius stood and stared down contemptuously at Derek. “You filthy creatures get so _cocky_. Dig your claws into a town and you think you’re fucking untouchable. Well, you’re _wrong_. You’re going to get what’s coming to you.” Then Darius hauled off and punched Derek in the face. Derek’s head snapped around and a sound that was both pain and rage tore from his throat.

With a disgusted noise, Darius turned and marched out the door. Ricardo closed it behind his companion and bolted it shut.

It left Ace and Derek alone in a tiny cement room with only a bare incandescent lightbulb overhead warding off the dark.

Ace watched Derek carefully from where he lay crumpled, still unmoving. He had gone unnoticed by Darius and Ricardo by staying still, giving no clues he’d come to. He had no reason to think it wouldn’t fool Derek just as handily, just until he had a little better handle on what the fuck was going on. Damn, his head hurt.

In the next moment, Derek’s eyes dropped from the door down to Ace and he frowned. “You’re an idiot.”

Ace squawked… then spit when it dislodged a clot of blood in his throat. Gross.

Gingerly, Ace got to his hands and knees. The world tilted and he wobbled drunkenly, head spinning and stomach clenching in a clear warning he might heave any second. So definitely concussed.

“You should have run when I told you to run,” Derek scolded, but his voice was not nearly as sharp as he probably wanted it to be. Being shot with arrows clearly took a lot out of him.

“And what?” Ace countered dizzily. “Leave you to tweedle dee and tweedle dum?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Derek hissed, then a strange there-and-gone smile twitched at his mouth.

“Yeah, well… you can suck it.” He could afford to be insolent – it wasn’t like Derek was in any condition to tear him apart.

Derek gave him a venomous look.

“Who the hell are those guys?”

“Hunters.”

Ace’s mouth gaped open. “As in those _illegal deer hunters_ you guys ran off?”

“ _Deer_ … heh, not so much.”

“Holy shit…” No wonder the pack had reacted so strongly to their presence in the woods. No wonder Laura and Aaron were sequestered away like royalty in the midst of a siege. No wonder everyone had been _freaking the fuck out_.

Clearly he’d been getting thirty percent of the story, at best.

Ace brought a hand to his face and gingerly felt the damage. A swollen eye, busted lip, maybe a broken nose…

“Are you okay?”

Ace shot Derek an incredulous look. “Am _I_ okay?” Obviously _not_ , but _comparatively_ … “ _I’m_ not the one that looks like a pin cushion.”

Derek grimaced and looked down at the two wooden shafts sticking out of him. He wrapped his fingers around one… or tried to. He’d barely touched it when he hissed and jerked his hand back. “ _Fuck_ … come here.”

“Me?” Ace asked.

“No,” Derek snarled drolly, “I’m talking to the other person in this tiny room with us. _Yes_ , you.”

It took far longer than it should have to shuffle and slide his way over to Derek, certain every other second he was about to pitch face-first into the floor. His head was pounding, a chill metallic ache burning in his skull, like his bones were made of bitter steel and his brain throbbed in time with his heart against the too-tight metal. Except at the back of his head, where it was a white-hot epicenter of pain. No doubt where the hunter had clobbered him with his crossbow. Ace kind of dreaded reaching up there and feeling the damage. He tried not to think about it and focused on making his way on hands and knees over to Derek.

When he finally reached Derek, the Hale patriarch waved weakly at the arrows. “Pull them out.”

“ _What_?!”

“I can’t touch them… I need you to get them out.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to yank out shit when you get impaled. It just causes more damage.”

“ _Just do it_.”

“Oh my god, _fine_!” Ace was one thousand percent _done_. “You want to bleed out in this shitty little broom closet, be my guest…” With a scowl and a wince, Ace took hold of one arrow and tugged. Not nearly as hard as he needed to if he wanted to free the arrow.

“Stop fucking around!” Derek growled, writhing.

“Stop yelling at me!” Ace yelped, then he yanked hard. The arrow came free with a squelch and a string of blood that made a surge of bile rush up Ace’s throat. He turned his head and panted, waiting to see if he threw up.

“The last one,” Derek commanded.

Ace threw the arrow in his hand into the corner in revulsion and turned back to grip the second arrow. He braced himself, swallowed hard, and pulled.

The second arrow came out and Derek bucked, cradling his stomach and screaming.

Ace flung the second arrow away and skittered back from Derek. “Oh shit, oh shit… I hate you so much for making me do that.”

Derek curled up in his corner, tucking his legs up as he couldn’t before with the arrows in the way. He slid a look over at Ace, looking morbidly amused. “You grew a pair.”

Ace broke down with a nervous, manic chuckle. “I am too fucking freaked out to give two shits about your approval right now.”

Oddly enough, that seemed to get him Derek’s approval anyway. “You did good. You were brave. _Stupid_ , but brave.”

“Yeah, well... I’d say make sure that ends up on my tombstone, but I doubt you’ll be getting out of this alive any more than I am.” The reality of that hit Ace. “Oh _shit_ … we’re going to die in here.”

“No, we’re not. The pack will come for us.”

It sounded like that was what the murder twins wanted, and surely anything they wanted was bad news for Derek and Ace. The hunters were obviously setting up some kind of trap for the others. And that was Bad with a capital ‘b’. Ace wished he had the blind faith in the pack that Derek obviously did. He could use a little optimism right then. But no… all he had were dark premonitions and wondering what might be left of him for his parents to bury.

Ace was torn from his fatalistic ruminations when Derek lurched to his feet, practically climbing up the wall for support the whole way.

“Whoa, are you sure you should be… ooookay, never mind,” Ace trailed when Derek stood, swaying, and moved toward the door. He reached out with the hand _not_ holding his guts in but stopped well shy of touching the door. “Rowan wood,” he bit out in disgust.

How Derek was able to give a fuck about the bad guys’ carpentry choices at the moment was beyond baffling.

“What the hell is going on?” Ace demanded, voice cracking despite his every effort to sound tough.

Derek looked over at him, expression unreadable.

“Why do these people want to hurt your family?”

Derek sighed. “I told you this was a reality for us.”

“ _Yeah_ , but I didn’t think…”

“What, that it was real?”

Ace winced. “I… I guess not. No. I mean, what the shit? This is _insane_.”

“Can’t argue that,” Derek grumbled. He limped back to his corner and slid to the floor. “Sorry you got involved.”

“Can I at least know what I might die for? What this big fucking secret is?”

Derek considered Ace a moment. It was the first time Ace felt like Derek Hale was looking at him as almost an equal instead of some lesser creature unworthy of his respect. “You shouldn’t hear it from me. Ask Laura.”

“I might never see her again!”

“You’ll see her again,” Derek said firmly, “because we are getting out of here. _Ask Laura_.”

Ace gaped like a howler monkey with a gourd stuck in its throat, ready to unleash another protest.

“ _Look_ ,” Derek snarled, “there’s still a _chance_ … if they realize you’re just a _stupid kid_ , that you have _no idea_ what you’ve gotten yourself into, then _maybe_ …”

Maybe what? They’d let him go? Let him live? That sounded really fucking unlikely, but it also sounded like Derek was still trying protect him, and it was hard to be too mad at that.

He still _was_ , no question, but it was harder to yell at Derek for it. That and the arrow wounds in the guy’s gut. Ace didn’t want to be the douche that would kick a guy when he was down, and Derek was that guy, _literally_.

A tense silence fell between them. Derek curled tighter around his wounded belly while Ace closed his eyes and rested his head on his folded arms, trying to quiet the hurricane in his head. His concentration started drifting, like his brain matter had been shattered into icebergs that were just floating around disjointedly in his skull.

He startled when Derek spoke.

“No one will blame you if you want to walk away from this.”

Ace balled his hands into fists.

“Laura won’t blame you.”

Ace’s head came up then (too fast, the world twirled and his balance did a big fuck you cartwheel). He struggled to focus on Derek in his corner. “You know what?, since I’m a prisoner and I don’t even know _why_ , for however long we’re in here I don’t want to hear another _word_ about how I’m going to break up with Laura because I’m apparently a chicken-shit bastard. I might die because I _didn’t_ run, so you can just keep that fucking opinion to yourself. I don’t fucking deserve that. _And another thing_ …”

He didn’t get to vent about that ‘other thing’ because Derek did him the discourtesy of passing out.

*********

Sometime after Derek passed out, Ace tipped over and fell asleep. Technically, he might have passed out, too, but no one was awake to see it, so he was calling it falling asleep. He came to an indeterminate amount of time later and struggled to find some way of orienting himself to a time and place.

Place was easy. Still trapped in the broom closet of doom. Time was significantly harder. There were no windows to tell night from day, their phones had been confiscated, and their captors didn’t seem particularly concerned about keeping their prisoners hydrated or fed.

All he knew was his head still hurt like a motherfucker, his stomach was telling him he’d missed a meal or two, his vertigo was letting him know that was just as well because any food he ate would come right back up, and Derek was…

Ace squinted at Derek’s still form by the back wall and had a sudden moment of panic. He looked dead. Surely no one could be that ashen, that _pale_ , and be alive.

“Derek?” Ace tried to get up but the second he got his feet under him he tipped and semi-crashed into the wall. The earth tried to buck him off and he scrabbled at the concrete. His balance tilted and he staggered backward, his knees buckled, and he fell on his ass.

It jarred through his spine up into his skull and set off a new explosion of pain. 

“ _Ooooow_.” Ace cradled his head like it could keep his cranium from cracking open. He slipped one hand back and encountered hair matted with dried blood, then swallowed the urge to puke and stubbornly crawled over to where Derek lay motionless.

“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” Ace chanted. He reached Derek and shook his shoulder. “Derek?!”

If Derek was dead, he was a zombie, because the manhandling pulled a groan out of him. A pretty spot-on zombie groan, in fact. If he started trying to bite, Ace was going to flip out so fucking badly. If the Hale secret was a zombie apocalypse, Ace was going to drive straight to his parents’ house, climb into his childhood bed, pull the covers over his head, and he was never coming out. Laura could play fort with him, but he was not stepping foot outside ever again.

Seriously, fuck zombies.

“Derek? Come on, wake up.” Ace didn’t want to be alone in this nightmare.

“Stiles?” Derek croaked, eyes moving beneath closed lids.

“No, it’s me.”

“ _Stiles_?” Derek writhed.

“It’s _Ace_.”

A tortured moment of blind wriggling. Derek’s voice became small, wounded. “… Stiles?”

Ace sighed helplessly. “Do you think I’m Stiles or are you asking for Stiles?” He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Stiles.”

“Okay, Hodor.” Ace sat back and studied Derek. The guy looked like refried shit. His skin was pasty-white, dark bruises crouched under his eyes, his shirt was stiff with dried blood, and he smelled. Like death. Which was not reassuring.

“Should probably take a look at your, uh… stomach arrow things.” Not that Ace could do anything about them, it wasn’t like he had a first aid kit, but checking on them seemed like something a responsible person would do in such a situation.

Ace leaned forward and peeled up Derek’s shirt.

“ _Oh god_ ,” he gagged, his other hand coming to his mouth when he saw two holes (not actively bleeding, small mercies) that were the epicenters of spiders of blue-black lines radiating outward. “Oh god, that’s _bad_ … that’s… infected or… oh fuck, that’s _poison_.”

Ricky or Davis or whatever, one of those douchebags… they’d said something about… something? Ace kind of remembered something that might have been talk about poison? Hell, it was hard to remember. There was a blur in his brain that made him uncertain about details. He blamed the concussion.

Unless…

“Shit!” he clutched at his own chest. “Did they poison me, too?!”

Not like he could do anything about _that_ , either, if it were the case.

“ _Stiles_?!” Derek sort of cried out, lunging awkwardly and arm flailing.

“Hey hey hey,” Ace caught Derek’s hand and held on. Derek gripped it tight, snarled like he knew damn well it wasn’t his husband’s, then went slack again.

“Well, shit,” Ace muttered. It wasn’t worth the effort (or the dizziness and nausea) to crawl back to his old spot, so he remained sitting next to Derek, holding his hand for all the good it did.


	9. Chapter 9

Ace kind of freaked out when Derek spasmed and vomited black bile.

His stomach clearly thought that looked like fun, because the sight and sound of Derek’s gastric pyrotechnics had Ace hurling right after him. He didn’t have much in his stomach to bring up, so it was a lot of dry heaving that made his headache worse and his balance take a ride on a carousel set to ludicrous speed.

When he got his retching under control, Ace grimaced at the combined pool of sick in front of them. No way was he sitting scant inches from that. He’d probably yak again if he had to look at it up close and personal, and he thought his head was going to explode the first time.

And leaving Derek practically lying in the mess seemed like an epically shitty thing to do. So…

“Derek?” Ace jostled Derek’s hand (somehow he hadn’t lost his hold on it through everyone joining in the puke party), trying to rouse him. “Get up, Derek.”

“… _Stiles_ …”

Ace rolled his eyes. “I would think that was adorably romantic any other time,” Ace groused, “but right now, could you just wake up?”

Derek did not oblige.

“Awesome,” Ace grumbled sarcastically.

Then he spent probably fifteen minutes pulling and tugging and hauling and manhandling Derek to drag him away from the vomit. It wasn’t easy. Ace had a head injury, was possibly poisoned, and Derek was fucking _heavy_. The dude had to be just solid muscle. Of course, after breaking a sweat trying to move him, Ace was not feeling generous.

“ _Seriously_ , lay off the twinkies.”

Derek twitched. “What?”

Ace looked up, panicked, and saw Derek’s fevered eyes looking back at him.

“Oh, sure, you wake up for _that_.”

Derek tried to resist Ace’s attempts to move him, possibly on principle alone. “What are you doing? Where’s Stiles? Are my kids okay?” His gaze was glassy but already blazing with anger. That look of fury with not enough wherewithal to know how to direct it was not a comforting sight. Ace felt he should probably establish immediately that _he_ was not the enemy.

“We were locked up by hunters, remember?” Ace eyed Derek warily. “Remember I’m the _good guy_?”

Derek was hunched over, one arm cradling his belly while the other was locked in Ace’s grasp. Derek peered down at it unhappily, but Ace didn’t let go. He was kind of worried Derek might topple if he did.

“I don’t know where Stiles is,” Ace answered the other questions. “I’m sure Laura and Aaron are fine.” The pack had kept the ‘kids’ out of it the last time the hunters were involved… stood to reason they’d be kept out of it this time, too. Plus that kind of reassurance would probably do Derek good.

What he’d been doing seemed like the least important question, so he answered it last. “I was just trying to move you away from that nastiness.” He nodded with his chin toward the offending puddle. “You threw up.”

Derek glanced over at the mess and scowled. “You did, too.”

Ace made a sour face… if he weren’t so sure it would make him fall over, he would have rolled his eyes. Heaven forbid Derek be weak and not Ace, too. “Well, you made it look like so much fun…”

Derek grunted and shuffled forward in the direction Ace was tugging him. Apparently the smell of vomit was enough to motivate even a guy with holes in his abdomen to move his ass. Good to know. If only they could open a window to air out the room.

Derek shrugged off Ace’s hands as he wedged himself in the corner and slumped against the wall, curled in on himself and panting. The exertion of lurching and lumbering just a few feet had given his skin a wet sheen of sweat, weighing down his hair and causing it to lie flat against his forehead. Ace hoped Derek wasn’t about to hurl again. They were running out of corners.

“You don’t look so good,” Ace ventured, hovering nearby.

Derek cracked open an eye to look at him. “Neither do you.”

Ace huffed.

“Have they been back?” Derek asked, his eyes slipping closed again.

“The hunters? Uh… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Derek parroted in the tone of an accusation. Like Ace was a special kind of moron who would just fail to notice their captors stopping by for a visit.

“Yeah… I kind of… fell asleep.”

Derek opened his eyes and looked pointedly at Ace.

Ace flushed. “ _Fine_ , I passed out. Dude, I got hit on the head, what do you want from me?” He bit his tongue just before pointing out that Derek had passed out, too. Pot getting pissed at the kettle for being black and whatnot.

Instead of angry, the news that Ace had lost consciousness caused a fleeting look of concern to misplace the misery and anger in Derek’s expression. It kind of sucked harder knowing he was making Derek worry while he was the one who had been shot by arrows, poisoned, and was possibly dying. ‘Way to be a cry-baby, Ace,’ he thought to himself.

Derek sank against the wall, body growing increasingly loose and lax with every second. It looked like he was going to ease into passing out this time instead of it happening all at once.

“If you get a chance to make a run for it, go,” Derek rasped.

Ace looked at him incredulously. “And leave you here?”

“They want me; you were just in the way. They probably wouldn’t go after you if you escaped.”

It was a tempting notion, but Ace only entertained it for a nanosecond. This was Laura’s _father_ he’d be leaving behind. The head of the family Ace was hoping he might one day join. How could he look any of them in the eye again, how he could face _Laura_ , if he ditched her father when he was in trouble? He wouldn’t do that to his buds on the team, and Derek Hale had the potential to mean more to him than his college pals ever would.

And Ace had been _told_ , through action and words, that his devotion and sincerity toward Laura would be tested. His worth was in question. Everyone expected him to fold under the pressure.

And yes, this was _a lot_ of fucking pressure, but he _loved_ Laura.

Too much to abandon her dad when he was hurt and sick. Enough to see this through to the end, _whatever_ that might mean.

He never knew he could face a life-or-death situation and have any part of him say ‘bring it on’, but here he was. He was braver than he thought, and that was bolstering and terrifying all at once.

Ace scowled mightily. “I thought we talked about this, about you assuming I’m just going to jump ship first chance I get. I mean, my head hurts, and my memory’s kind of hazy, but I’m pretty sure I told you to shut the hell up about that.”

Derek gave a sickly smirk. “That was about you leaving _Laura_.”

“ _Fine_. I’m not going to ditch _any_ Hale. Got it?”

Derek’s eyes rolled, in wavering consciousness instead of exasperation, before finally landing on Ace with a look of disbelief. “You _are_ an idiot.”

He might be.

“Love you, too, Dad,” Ace quipped sarcastically.

Derek froze.

Ace didn’t figure he had much dignity to tarnish in Derek Hale’s eyes, so he curled up in a ball on the floor and let himself sink under. The blackness was such a welcome reprieve.

*********

They must have been in that little room for days. Enough that their captors realized they might actually die without water, because one of them cracked open the door and upended a sack of bottled water. The plastic containers thudded and bounced and rolled all over the concrete floor like wonky billiard balls and Ace, thirstier than he was scared of hunters, scrambled after one.

Derek remained slumped in the corner.

The douchebag in the door went to shut it, did a double-take, and frowned. “Darius, Hale doesn’t look good.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Darius’s voice countered smugly somewhere beyond the cell. “He’s got wolfsbane poisoning.”

“No, I mean, he shouldn’t look this bad just two days in. The coating we put on the arrows should have strung him along for a week, at least.”

Ace’s head came up at that exchange. They seemed worried about Derek. Maybe he could get them to help him. “He’s getting worse,” Ace spoke up, dry voice cracking and paper-thin. “You have to help him.”

“ _Ace_ ,” Derek hissed.

“Is that the furry talking?” the second hunter joined the first. Together, they peered down snidely at Ace from the doorway, condescension in their eyes. “Aw, look, Ricardo. The animal-lover’s worried about his pet.”

Ace tried to swallow but didn’t have the spit to do it. “He’s _dying_.”

“Kind of the point,” Darius smirked.

Ricardo wasn’t so blithe. He was studying Derek in the corner, a frown tugged at his lips. “He _might_. Shit. Should we call Max?”

“Don’t call Max,” Darius snapped, suddenly irritable. “He left us in charge here while they get ready. We can handle this.”

“You _can’t_ ,” Ace insisted. “ _Call Max_.” Whoever Max was, he had to want Derek alive at least a little bit longer. Ace just needed to buy some time for help to find them. The pack. Shit, he hoped Derek’s faith in the pack was not unfounded.

Darius surged into the room and yanked Ace to his feet with one meaty fist in his shirt. “ _Listen_ , you little shit…”

Ricardo stepped forward to restrain his companion, Ace cringed away from the expected blows, but before anyone could say another word a rattling growl rose from the corner.

Darius’s steely eyes left Ace and he looked toward Derek. He guffawed. “Well, isn’t that _cute_. What, is this one yours, Hale?”

The growling stopped.

Darius looked down his nose at Ace. “Well, well, well. I thought you were worthless, but then again, maybe not. If he’ll fight for you, he’ll die for you. That’s a nice bit of leverage, don’t you think?”

Ace glowered at the hunter while a tiny voice in his head was screaming ‘what the hell is wrong with you?! Look away! Don’t rile him up!’ Seemed brave Ace (or stupid Ace) was more prominent than sensible Ace when lives were on the line.

“For fuck’s sake, Darius, stop with the god damn villain speeches,” Ricardo said and yanked on his companion’s shoulder. “We have shit to get done before the pack shows up. Knock it off and move your ass.”

Darius snorted and shoved Ace away. In a perfect world, he would have stumbled back a couple of steps then stood tall, facing his captors with chin held high. In reality, his legs tangled under him and he crashed to the floor to Darius’s echoing evil laughter (seriously, the guy must have practiced that).

When the door slammed shut again, Ace collected himself (wiping dust and dirt out of his new raw scratches) and cast about the floor for the water bottles.

“Just how hard did they hit you over the head?” Derek barked when Ace turned toward him. “That was _beyond stupid_.”

“It was worth a shot,” Ace countered glumly.

“No, it _wasn’t_. They could have killed you.” Derek’s eyes blazed. “These people don’t follow any code. They have no scruples. They don’t care about who gets hurts in the crossfire.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m not keen on watching you die. I mean, who the hell is going to pay for _that_ therapy?” Ace reached Derek and held out one of the bottles. “Here.”

Derek glowered at Ace like he wanted to continue the fight but reached out shakily and took the bottle. They were both parched. Water came first.

Their stomachs had been denied essential liquids so long they hardly knew what to do with sweet guzzles of water. Ace and Derek pulled back from their bottles almost at the same time when their stomach somersaulted.

“Don’t puke,” Ace warned Derek and himself. “We’re running out of corners.” One was already soiled with vomit and another had been designated the official latrine (since the hunters didn’t even give them the decency of a bucket). The tiny room smelled pretty foul, though Ace was kind of scared that he didn’t even notice it anymore. It was horrifying what the human senses could get used to.

After they’d both drunk nearly an entire bottle each, Ace peered over at Derek. “Did you actually _growl_ at them?”

Derek paused. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Ace boggled at that. “How was _growling_ a go-to response?”

“Well, my _first_ response would have been to rip their throats out, but since I’m not really up for that kind of cardio right now…” Derek countered dryly.

Ace snorted. “ _Growling_ … what even?” Then he frowned in thought. “What did that guy mean, I’m yours?”

Derek didn’t answer right away, avoiding the question by scratching at the paper label on his bottle with his thumbnail. “He thinks you’re part of my pack.”

“He does?”

Derek glared bitterly at his drink. “You keep defending me… I warned him off you… that’s probably enough for them. They’re not going to just let you go now.”

He should probably be scared of that. It meant walking away was no longer an option. And yet, it didn’t feel like it really changed his situation any. He’d already picked his side. He might not know what was going on completely, he might not know this big secret they were all in on, but he knew without a doubt that those assholes were the bad guys. Ace would side with the Hales if for no other reason than he wasn’t a fucking Death Eater.

Rather than beat that dead horse some more, Ace pondered his mostly-empty water bottle and asked, “Do you think they laced our water with anything?”

Because that would just fucking figure.

“How’s your headache?” Derek asked, ignoring the water question.

Ace grunted. “Hurts, but not as bad as it did. Probably needed stitches to close the gash in the back of my head, but I’m sure it’s too far gone and gnarly now. I’m going to have an ugly-ass scar.”

There was a beat of silence before Derek said, “Laura won’t care about a scar.”

Ace smiled a little, taking that for the peace offering it was. “I hope not, because hair might not even grow back over it. I could have a _bald spot_. How does Laura feel about guys in hats?”

Derek chuckled. It was weak and brittle in his chest, but it was a chuckle nonetheless.

It felt like reaching the summit of Mount Everest.


	10. Chapter 10

Derek began slipping in and out of consciousness. The poison in his system was spreading, taking hold of him more tightly with every passing hour. Ace had to ply him to drink water, and twice it came back up a putrid mixture of clear liquid and black bile.

In his delirium, Derek would ramble on in fractured sentences that made no sense. Ace stopped trying to make sense of “wolfsbane… now, you gotta do it, now… cut off my arm…” a long time ago.

Those senseless utterings were easier to bear than when Derek would start calling for his husband. Those pleas were heartbreaking, because Derek sounded so gutted when he called for Stiles and Stiles didn’t come.

Ace was emotionally wrung out just from being in the same room with that. 

It was late, he thought. His body felt like it should be asleep, anyway, but the unchanging light fucked up his circadian rhythm and he didn’t know down from up, sleep-wake-cycle-wise. He was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Derek, each helping to prop the other up, and his head was bobbing drowsily. He didn’t want to sleep. He had trouble waking up when he fell asleep. He knew that was the head injury’s fault. It wasn’t as bad now as it was in the beginning – in the beginning he just straight-up passed out, and now he actually fell asleep – but it was so hard to rouse himself. He was scared the hunters would come for Derek and he wouldn’t even fucking wake up for it. He was afraid he would wake up and Derek would just be _gone_.

Or dead.

He felt like they’d been in that little room forever, would be in it forever, and had kind of resigned himself to its four walls when suddenly Derek jolted next to him.

Ace jerked and looked over at Derek. “What’s wrong?”

Derek’s attention was focused intently on the door. “They’re here.”

“The hunters?” Ace asked with dread.

“ _The pack_.”

Ace’s eyes widened. He hardly dared let himself get his hopes up. Could they have come? How could Derek know?

But Derek was alert as he had not been in hours (days?, Ace didn’t even know). He still looked like death on a hot plate, he was still ravaged by poison and riddled with arrow wounds, but he was paying attention. He was intense. Eager.

He definitely looked like a guy whose salvation had come.

Ace hoped like hell Derek was right.

Minutes passed and brought with them the sounds of a fight. Yells. Thuds. The whistle of arrows flying. There were also other noises that Ace couldn’t really place. Dogs? Had they brought the police with a K-9 unit? There were definite animal-like sounds amid the fighting.

Derek was getting restless. He struggled to get up and go to the door, but the moment any limb took weight, it buckled.

“Stop it.” Ace grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back against the wall. The fact that Ace could hold Derek back said a lot about the guy’s condition.

Derek growled… because that was something weirdo Derek Hale just did.

“Don’t growl at me,” Ace retorted. “You’re no good to them in a fight. What are you going to do, strategically fall where a bad guy will trip over you?” Derek gave him a scathing look which Ace tacitly ignored. Sharing a prison cell with Derek Hale had given Ace a lot of perspective on who he should fear and who he needn’t. “You said you trust the pack to save us, so _let them_.”

It felt like the fighting raged for hours before there was a thud on the other side of the door. Ace jumped, certain it was Darius, come to slit their throats in theatric ‘if I can’t have you, no one can’ fashion.

Derek strained against Ace’s hold. “ _Stiles_!”

“ _Derek_!”

That was Stiles!

The locks clunked open, the hinges screamed, Stiles burst into the room, and… honestly, it was one of the scariest sights Ace had ever set eyes upon. Stiles came in blazing like a firestorm, fury in his eyes and rage seared across his features. All traces of the jocular, easy-going Stiles were _gone_. In his place was this creature of gargantuan spirit and herculean resolve. Something about his presence _loomed_ , raised the hairs on the back of Ace’s neck and filled the room to bursting with a power disproportionate to Stiles’ size. There was something bigger than Stiles’ body latched on to him, cramming into the room with him, crackling with this leashed lightning that Stiles seemed poised to turn loose on anything that stood in his way.

“Derek!” Stiles rushed to his husband. Ace backed away to give Stiles room. Stiles’ hands went to Derek’s face, brushed back his sweaty hair, then he ducked in to place a quick kiss on Derek’s forehead. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

Derek swayed into Stiles, face-planting into the crook of Stiles’ neck and inhaling deeply.

“He’s been poisoned,” Ace supplied.

“Wolfsbane,” Stiles nodded with a furious, determined look. “I can fix this.”

How the hell could _Stiles_ fix this? Derek didn’t need some whacky home remedy, he needed a fucking doctor.

“Pop!” a cry came from the doorway.

Ace’s head whipped up at the voice, his heart soaring. It was her. His Halen of Troy. His Laura.

Laura stood just outside the door, shifting anxiously and looking down at the threshold. “Pop, the mountain ash.”

Stiles did a pretty decent imitation of Derek’s growl, turned with an outstretched hand, and from out of _nowhere_ a gust of wind whooshed through the doorway. It slapped Laura’s pants against her legs, billowed her shirt, and kicked up a tiny cloud of dust at the bottom of the doorway. Laura bolted inside the room in the next instant. She was crouching in front of Ace before he could say a word, before he could get lost in her eyes, the hazel green-gold of them… but, wait, Laura’s eyes weren’t _that_ gold, were they?

“Ace?! Baby, are you okay?” Laura seemed intent on touching him everywhere at once. She pushed her fingers into his hair and… it sounded sappy, but Laura’s touch really did make everything better. It eased the pain he’d been battling for days. He sighed and sagged toward her, awash with warmth and contentment.

“Do that later,” Stiles snapped.

Laura’s hand disappeared and the pain crept back.

Stiles looked around the room and spotted the discarded arrows in the corner. He whirled to Ace. “Was he shot?”

Derek grunted against Stiles’ collarbone, maybe an annoyed reaction to not being asked directly about his own injuries.

Ace nodded. “Yeah… twice in the stomach. He made me take them out. I didn’t want to. I told him you’re not supposed to take them out…”

With that, Stiles jumped up and fetched the arrows. He came back with them in hand, scowling down at the offending items, teeth pulled back in a frightening snarl. “Fucking hunters.” He knelt before Derek, touching his arm. “Triage time, big guy.”

Derek winced. “I hate this part.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s been in you too long. Not sure you’d make it home. We have to do it now.”

Derek looked at the arrows dubiously. “Can you get enough from those?”

Stiles dug into his pocket with his free hand and brought out a tiny Ziploc bag of purple powder. “Took this off the arrows you brought back to the house before. This and this together… should do it. Now show me where it hurts.”

Derek flopped onto his back and hiked up his shirt. The two holes were nested in blue-black and the lines of spreading poison crawled all the way down toward his groin, disappearing into his pants, and inched toward his chest.

Laura whimpered.

“ _Fuck_ , Derek,” Stiles hissed, touching Derek’s belly tenderly before he went to work. He pulled a hand-size mirror out of his pocket and laid it on the floor.

“Why is Laura here?” Derek asked blearily while Stiles knocked and scraped wolfsbane off the arrow shafts onto the mirror.

“Her boyfriend was in danger,” Stiles countered distractedly. “I couldn’t keep her out of this one.”

“Is Aaron here?” Derek asked disapprovingly.

“Well, he wasn’t about to let his sister leave him behind.”

Derek’s hand shot out and he gripped Stiles’ forearm, _hard_. “You _let_ our kids join the fight?”

Stiles slapped at Derek’s hand. “Let’s make sure you don’t die from wolfsbane poisoning, _then_ we can talk about at what age our _adult_ children should be allowed to stand with the pack.”

Derek looked incensed.

Laura sidled in closer to Ace and wrapped him up in her arms. He gratefully leaned against her. “They took Ace, Dad. I had to. Could you stay out of it if it was Pop?”

Derek blinked. Stiles paused half a second while pouring some of the powder from his bag onto the mirror to spare them a glance. “Oh boy,” he muttered, then he bent back to his work.

Stiles took a lighter and ignited the powder, which sparkled and crackled like a Fourth of July toy. When the light show ended, Stiles lifted the mirror with its load of burned wolfsbane and separated the ashes into two piles. He palmed both and let the mirror fall as he leaned over Derek’s bared stomach. “Ready?”

“ _No_. Just do it.”

Stiles nodded, expression grim, and slapped his hands down over both of the arrow holes.

Derek arched off the floor with a scream.

Ace didn’t realize he was lunging at Stiles until Laura was holding him back. “What are you doing?! You’re hurting him!”

Stiles put all his weight into holding his hands against Derek’s wounds, twisting to work the cinder into the holes. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

It didn’t fucking look like it. Ace strained against Laura’s hold.

“It’s all right, baby,” Laura said gently, even though she sounded tense having to see her father in agony. “It’s going to save him.”

Ace didn’t see _how_. Derek was writhing and screaming on the floor. His screams became so loud, echoed so much in the tiny confines that it started to sound more like a roar. Stiles’ face drained of blood, like doing this to Derek was at least gut-wrenching for him. “Come on, Derek…”

One moment Derek was in the throes of some kind of seizure, then the next…

Honestly, Ace wasn’t sure. The purplish-blue lines snaking like rivers on a map along Derek’s torso faded and disappeared. But that was insane, poison didn’t just vanish like that. Then Stiles was yanking down Derek’s shirt and Ace wasn’t really sure what he saw.

Stiles leaned over to look Derek in the eye. “You with me, Derek?”

Derek, weak but somehow _better_ , nodded stiltedly and reached up to fist his fingers in Stiles’ hair. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Stiles grinned. “Damn right.” He leaned in and kissed Derek on the mouth. Knowing the crap that had come out of that mouth in the last few days, and the fact Derek hadn’t brushed his teeth in just as long… well, Ace figured that was love right there.

“We’ve got them on the run, Stiles!” Scott’s voice called from beyond the door. “Get your asses in gear!”

Ace didn’t need to be told twice. Laura helped him to his feet and cleaved herself to his side (and he totally needed that, his head was spinning, his headache was coming back from all the excitement, and his vision was blurring more than he cared to admit), while Stiles hauled Derek to his feet and draped one of his husband’s arms over his shoulders.

“All right, kids, vacation’s over,” Stiles announced. Then he led the way out of the holding cell door, half-dragging Derek along with him. Laura was right behind him, Ace attached to her side like a barnacle.

Their tiny cage, it turned out, was inside an old warehouse. Either the overhead lights had been taken out or didn’t work at all, because the main warehouse was almost pitch dark. The only light came from mechanic’s lights clamped here and there to steel girders, spots of illumination in the dark like tiny lighthouses in an angry sea. It was night beyond the building, the windows showing only a lighter shade of darkness outside. The sounds of the fight were echoing off the walls eerily. They sounded desperate now, like men on the run. The animals in pursuit were unrelenting. Unforgiving.

Ace was trying to take it all in, but his mind was reeling. It was all too much to process at once. He needed to stop, slow down, break it into pieces. Shit, his head was killing him. He would give his left nut for some Advil.

When he saw glowing eyes coming at him from the darkness, he knew he’d been right to question the water.

“Oh my god,” Ace gasped. “Laura, they gave me LSD.”

“What?” she asked, looking up at him, and… _oh fuck_ , her eyes were doing it, too. Glowing _yellow_. The pack was emerging out of the shadows: Scott and Isaac and Erica and Boyd and Jackson and Aaron, and all of their eyes, everyone’s eyes were _glowing_. Most of their eyes were glowing yellow, Jackson’s were an icy blue, but their eyes were all _glowing_.

“I am tripping balls!” Ace yelped.

Up ahead of them, Stiles actually laughed.

Laura held him closer. “You’re not tripping, baby.”

Ace would agree to disagree.

From the ring of glowy-eyed people (who all appeared to be wearing riot gear sans helmets), Scott and Isaac bounded up to Stiles and Derek. They took in the sight of the Hale patriarch with looks that were a blend of fury and concern.

“Derek?” Isaac squeaked. Scott blindly reached out to take Isaac’s hand.

“He’s okay,” Stiles said, hefting Derek’s weight stubbornly when Scott reached out like he wanted to help. “I already treated the wolfsbane. The wounds healed. Anyone get hit?”

“Gear worked like a charm,” Boyd supplied, brandished an arm armored in Kevlar with dings that might have been from deflected arrowheads.

Stiles nodded approval. “The hunters?”

“Dead. Mostly.” Jackson wandered closer, giving Derek a once-over as he delivered his report with a shrug.

“Allison?” Stiles prompted.

“She’s got her people on the stragglers,” Scott nodded. “No one’s going to slip through the cracks this time. She’s making calls and putting these fuckers on everyone’s shit-list.”

“The code,” Jackson said, making air-finger quotes.

“Be glad so many hunters hold that thing sacred,” Stiles said. “It means they come down just as hard as we do on these kind of scumbags.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Are you going to just stand there all night or do you expect us to build you a fucking litter to carry you home, your majesty?”

“Gee, would you?” Stiles countered. “My feet are hella sore.”

“Don’t you mean your ass?”

“Nope… Derek’s been gone since Wednesday, so definitely not my –”

“Knock it off, both of you,” Derek snarled.

Ace lost track of their conversation then, because Scott was suddenly crowding close to him, big brown eyes (what happened to the gold?, when did that stop being a thing?) taking in Ace’s condition. Ace hadn’t looked in a mirror, but he knew he had to look rough. The swelling in his eye had gone down enough for him to see with it again, so yay for three dimensions!, but it was no doubt still pretty ugly.

“Come on,” Scott bade softly. “My mom’s waiting outside to take care of you.”

There was more than Scott’s mother outside. John Stilinski was there with a group of younger men that _might_ have been cops, not that one would know to look at them. They were all in plain-dressed clothes, not a single squad car and no flashing red and blue lights in sight, but the people John was ordering around, especially some guy called ‘Parrish’, looked like professionals. They moved like they did this shit all the time. If they weren’t cops, then they had to be military.

It all looked so fucking _professional_. Practiced. Like there was a plan in place for this kind of thing happening and everyone knew their part to play.

Ace didn’t really get to rubberneck much, because Melissa was loading him into the back of an SUV to take him to the hospital before he really had a chance to work out what has happening. Laura crowded into the backseat next to him. She cupped his face in her hand, then that magic that was Laura Hale started easing the pain again.

So much so that he went with it. To the point where he thought to himself ‘to hell with whatever’s going on, it’ll keep’ and closed his eyes. They were out, the bad guys were taken care of... it could have been by the miraculous intervention of He-Man and She-Ra for all he cared.

He’d worry about that shit _later_.

They’d barely been driving five minutes when Ace fell asleep in Laura’s arms. He slept nearly pain-free for the first time in days.


	11. Chapter 11

A part of Ace was convinced that the rescue had all been a delusion brought on by his head injury coupled with the LSD Darius and Ricardo had clearly put in the water. Because he had vague memories of disappearing wounds and glowing eyes and Stiles straight-up pulling a Jedi trick, and if that didn’t scream drug-induced hallucination then Ace would eat his football cleats.

So he was genuinely surprised when he woke up in the hospital.

“Hey, sweetie,” a woman’s soft voice snared his attention before he had a chance to try and puzzle things out himself. He looked over and saw Melissa McCall, Grammccall, standing next to his bed in burgundy scrubs. She smiled kindly at him, a vision of medical salvation, but she was part of this acid trip. He couldn’t trust the sight of her.

“Wha…”

“It’s okay,” Melissa assured him, touching his arm and… okay, that felt real enough. The thin mattress and the sheets and the light from the window all seemed legit. And Melissa looked… _normal_. Her eyes weren’t glowing and she wasn’t defying any laws of physics. So far so good. “You’ve been asleep for about nine hours.”

Ace made a squeak that was supposed to be words, but oh well. He was probably doing good just not being a gibbering, drooling mess in the corner.

Melissa reached up to brush his hair back off his forehead, motherly, but sneaking a peek at the dilation of his pupils as she did it. “When we brought you in last night you were pretty out of it, so don’t worry if you feel a little disoriented. It’s perfectly normal. We cleaned and dressed the gash on the back of your head.”

Was that why it felt like his head was wrapped in a diaper? Something was definitely cushioning his head more like a backwards facehugger than a pillow.

“Infection hadn’t set in, so you got lucky. It should just be a matter of keeping it clean until it heals. Everything else looks good. There are no signs of any permanent damage. You had a concussion – I wouldn’t recommend any contact sports for a couple of weeks – but you should be fine. You just need plenty of rest.”

“What…”

“Don’t worry about the police report,” a male voice spoke, causing Ace to startle and flinch when a second person he didn’t even notice in the room came up on the other side of his bed. He blinked up at John Stilinski, flabbergasted. “Huh?”

John smiled and there was a hell of a lot in that smile. Kindness but also warning and commanding and all kinds of subtle cues that made the retired sheriff’s expression less than comforting. Like there were the words he was speaking but the _message_ behind them was entirely different, despite an outwardly gentle demeanor. He faked it like a pro, though. “Parrish already filed your statement that you and Laura were out for a walk in the woods and some guys jumped you.”

Ace was positive he hadn’t been conscious long enough to make any statement to the police.

“You were quite the hero, leaping to Laura’s defense and fighting them off as best you could the way you did,” John continued. “But there were four of them, so there was only so much you could do, son. Don’t feel guilty about what happened. Any of it. Laura’s corroborating statement stressed that you were very brave.”

“What…”

“You’ll be happy to know that your descriptions of the assailants meant the Beacon Hills PD was able to track down your attackers. Unfortunately, it looks like their hideout in the forest was in mountain lion territory and, well… safe to say, they won’t be hurting anyone else.”

“Wait, what…”

“These kind of attacks, especially those involving a head injury, can often result in pockets of memory loss of the assault,” Melissa soldiered on. “So it’s perfectly normal to say you don’t remember all the details, if anyone asks.”

“In fact, there are probably certain details you _should_ fail to remember. If anyone asks.” John added the last with a steely ‘or else’ glint in his eyes.

Sweet jesus, would they just let him get a word in?

“We know this kind of news might upset your parents if they heard about what happened,” Melissa said with measured sagacity.

Apparently not.

“Normally, we wouldn’t have a choice about informing them – you may be a legal adult, but you’re still on their insurance – but the Hales are going to pay for everything, so the insurance company doesn’t need to know about this. So it’s up to you if you want to tell your parents the truth. But if you wanted to save them the worry and make up another story for the last few days…”

“Laura already texted them that you lost your phone,” John jumped in. “Dropped it in the lake, actually. Laura feels awful about it, too, since she’s the one who jostled you and made you drop it.”

Ace let out a preverbal croak. Was it messed up that they were almost convincing him that had happened? He could picture it – hanging out on the dock, messing around on his phone, Laura leaping on his back, and his phone falling into the water with a ‘ _plonk_ ’ of finality.

“Once you get out of here, we’ll get you a replacement,” John assured. “That should give you some time to think about what you want to tell your parents.”

Oh my god, would they just shut up for two seconds?!

“ _Derek_ ,” Ace finally blurted.

John and Melissa both stopped and looked down at him.

Ace licked his lips. “Is Derek okay?” The last thing Ace could remember clearly, the last thing that he was _sure_ couldn’t have been part of an LSD nightmare (don’t drink the water!), was Derek Hale looking like he was on death’s door. Bleeding and poisoned and probably dying.

Melissa’s posture, her entire bearing, seemed to soften. John’s expression lost its steel and all that was left behind was warmth. “He’s fine,” John said lowly.

“Are you sure?” Derek had not seemed _fine_. Really fucking far from it, in fact.

John reached down and squeezed Ace’s shoulder. “I’m positive. In fact, you just missed him.”

“What?”

John looked fondly toward Melissa, who leaned in and said, “Derek, Stiles, Aaron, and Laura were here with you all night and all morning.” Sounded like a breach of visiting hours protocols, but Ace really did not have the wherewithal to judge. Also, he couldn’t help but notice they had someone with him around the clock – like they needed to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing to the wrong people before he could be coached.

Ace guessed the headache blooming behind his eyeballs was because of the what-the-fuckery surrounding the Hales and not the concussion. Which, all in all, was a nice change of pace.

“We just kicked them out about half an hour ago to go get something to eat.” Melissa chuckled. “Figures you would wake up as soon as we ran them off.”

How in the hell was Derek up and around if Ace was bed-ridden in the hospital? Derek had been far worse off than Ace was. Derek should be in a god damn ICU.

Wait a minute…

“Laura was here?” Ace asked, unable to stop the uptick of his heart.

Melissa smiled.

John patted Ace’s shoulder and pulled his hand back. “We could hardly pry her away from you. You’re a very lucky young man, Ace; my granddaughter loves you.” A flicker of worry, doubt, flashed over John’s features. “I just hope you love her enough.”

“Enough for what?”

John and Melissa exchanged a knowing look.

“That’s for Laura to tell you,” Melissa said gently. “Just get some rest. We’ll let the pack know you woke up.”

“Though we’ll stress you can’t have visitors yet or you’ll get swarmed,” John added with a kind of wry smirk. “Best they stay away for now. At least until after you’ve spoken to the Hales.”

That sounded like Big Important Things.

Ace was actually nervous.

*********

Not nervous enough to stay awake, apparently, because he dozed off after Melissa and John left. He blamed the bed. The hospital bed was not luxurious by any means, but it was infinitely better than a concrete floor.

Also pain-killers. Those were the best thing in the history of _ever_.

Ace was enjoying both to the fullest when a tug on the sheet tucked around him woke him. He cracked open his eyes and looked down at the sheet where it lay against his chest. It tugged again and he followed the tension to the person sitting beside him who was pulling carefully on the linens.

Laura.

“Hey,” he breathed with a burgeoning smile, struck by the mere sight of her. It was just as well he was already on his back, because she made him weak in the knees. Made his heart skip and his stomach quake with butterflies. There had been so many times in that little concrete room of hell when Ace was sure he would never see Laura again. That he would die and their unhappy conversation in the Hale guest bedroom a lifetime ago would be the last words they said to one another. Laying eyes upon her again, her face to launch a thousand ships, was like finally breathing after too long underwater.

It was going to be okay now. He believed that, heart, body, and soul. They were together. It would be all right now.

But maybe not, because Laura wasn’t climbing into bed with him like she always did after tugging on his covers. She wasn’t kissing him breathless or cuddling him within an inch of his life (and call him a wimp, but he could _really_ fucking use some cuddles right now). She was barely even smiling, and the smile she did give him was frail and uncertain.

His insides turned to ice. “What’s wrong?”

Laura gave up trying to hold the smile and pinched her lips together, fear and sorrow and guilt at war behind her beautiful eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ace.”

“Why? You didn’t do this.”

“I did. Maybe not directly, but this happened to you because of me. Because of what I am.” She yanked feebly on the sheet again, the white cloth still clenched in her fist, but she didn’t try to follow through. She did it like it was an unconscious move, like she couldn’t handle wanting to be close to him and not thinking she deserved it all at once. Her face started to crumple and her eyes swam with tears.

The sight was heartbreaking for Ace. “You can’t blame yourself for the fact there are assholes in the world,” he pointed out.

“No… but I can blame myself for you getting hurt by them. Because that’s on me. And I knew this might happen. Everyone knew. They tried to warn me, but I just… I just didn’t want to let you go. I was being selfish because I love you.” She dropped her eyes to her hand balled in a fist around the sheet. She clenched it tighter, until her knuckles were white and Ace could swear he heard the linen ripping. “If I really loved you…”

“Ah!” Ace yanked on the sheets himself to stop her midsentence, forcing her to look up at the impromptu tug-of-war. “If this is going to be the ‘if you love something, set it free’ speech, I’m pretty sure that saying is about wild horses or something. Doesn’t apply to people.”

Laura scowled. “This isn’t about setting you free, this is about not wanting you to die!”

“I didn’t die.”

“This time!” Laura abruptly looked away, but not before Ace could _swear_ he saw a glint of gold in her irises. Which… no, that wasn’t possible. That had been part of the _hallucination_. Hadn’t it?

“So what?” Ace ventured after a tense silence. “You let me go to save me, and you just spend the rest of your life alone? Do you plan to do this with everyone you fall in love with?”

“There wouldn’t be anyone after you,” Laura said with heartbreak and certainty in her voice.

That was… okay, that was huge. But so not the point. “So you’re going to spend your life alone.”

“I have my pack…”

“Not the same, and you know it.”

Laura growled. Holy shit, she was Derek’s daughter all right. “It’s too dangerous for you.”

“What about your parents?”

Laura paused.

“What if Derek had ‘set Stiles free’ to save him? Do you think either of them would have been happier for it?” Ace might not know everything about Derek and Stiles Hale, but he knew they were in love with each other. To the ends of the earth and back kind of in love. He didn’t doubt for a minute that no matter the dangers life threw at them, Stiles and Derek thought it was worth it.

Laura dipped her chin toward her chest. “That’s different. Pop knew.”

“This secret,” Ace said knowingly. “Well, then maybe you should tell me and let me decide for myself if you’re worth the risk.”

Laura just nodded solemnly, and from that alone Ace knew that Laura had intended this from the start. She came into his hospital room planning to tell him the truth. Even though she clearly thought it might mean losing Ace.

For a minute, there was dead silence in the room. Laura seemed to be gathering her courage, taking measured breaths and gripping the sheet like a lifeline.

When the silence became suffocating, Ace gave the sheet a tug.

“Werewolves.”

Ace blinked, certain he must have misheard. “Come again?”

Laura lifted her face to look at him, expression schooled and kept carefully neutral. “We’re werewolves.”

Ace gaped. “Uh… and by ‘we’ you mean…”

“All of us. Well,” Laura gave a one-shoulder shrug as she amended, “Pop’s human. Aunt Allison, Grandpa, and Grammccall too. But pretty much everyone else…”

Well that ‘pretty much’ was vague as fuck, but he could circle around back to that later. Because _earth-shattering revelations_.

Ace knew his mouth was hanging open, but there was really nothing he could do about that. He stared at Laura, trying to wrap his head around what he just heard.

“Are you serious?” was what finally came out of his mouth.

Laura’s nostrils flared in frustration and her eyes flashed bright, undeniable yellow-gold.

Ace startled back about an inch. Just an inch. But from the way Laura’s shoulders sagged, he might as well have launched himself across the room in abject terror. She dropped her eyes miserably to the wad of cloth she had in a death grip, head bowed like she was just waiting for the panic, the rejection, the epithet of ‘monster’, and maybe for him to rally the villagers with torches and pitchforks.

Ace stammered, speechless, as he stared at her. Werewolves. Actual real werewolves. Shit, _the pack_. The truth had been dangling in front of him the whole time. Tidbits. Bits and pieces. Never enough to put it together, because who in their right mind would think werewolves?

Holy shit, _werewolves_.

“Thank god it’s not zombies,” Ace sighed in relief.

Laura looked up at him, head cocked in confusion.

“I was… there was a moment. Never mind. I just could _not_ do zombies.” Ace shook his head.

Laura’s eyebrows twitched, as did the corners of her mouth. Like she was torn between consternated and amused.

“So… werewolves.”

Laura nodded. “Yeah.”

“ _Real_ werewolves.”

“Yes.”

“Are you… is it anything like in the movies?”

“ _No_ ,” Laura scoffed. “We’re not monsters. We go to school, we have jobs. Families.”

“Packs.”

Laura hesitated. “Does it matter what we call it? It’s the same thing.”

No, it really wasn’t. Ace’s family was nothing like the pack. Distant relatives he saw twice a year, if that. Aunts and uncles he barely knew and cousins he’d rather stick a fork in his eye than spend time with. Everyone scattered all over the country and so cut off from each other’s lives, aware of each other’s existence only by the grace of Facebook. The Hale pack Ace had seen was nothing like that.

The Hale pack was _better_.

“Laura…”

“Don’t say anything,” she interjected. With a sigh, she met his eyes. “Think about what this would mean for us. You. And if you want that.” She swallowed and looked around the hospital room grimly. “At least you understand the risk.”

With that, Laura forced herself to let go of the sheet and stood. 

When she started for the door, Ace panicked. “ _Laura_ , wait.”

She turned back to him, studied him like it was physically painful for her to walk away, then she went back to the bed, cupped his face, and bent down to kiss him on the forehead. Ace covered her hands with his, hoping to hold her there just a second longer. Just to give him some time to think without having to watch her leave.

“I love you,” she whispered, touching him tenderly. “No matter what you decide, I’ll always love you.”

Then she straightened up and left the room.

And left Ace reeling.


	12. Chapter 12

Ace had been alone for about an hour, but it felt so much longer than that. That must be a side-effect of having your worldview drastically altered. By werewolves. _Holy fucking shit_. Knowing they were real was one thing, but contemplating making that, _them_ , a part of his life, his _future_ , was dizzying.

It made the decision to go to Stanford seem like child’s play. To think that had once seemed like the biggest decision he would ever make. He would laugh if he had the wits, but every brain cell was completely devoted to ‘werewolves: _omg_ ’.

A knock on the door jarred Ace from possibly the most soul-searching he had ever done in his entire life. He looked up and Stiles pushed open the door just enough to poke his head in. “Can we come in?”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and Derek.” Stiles’ expression shuttered. “Is Derek going to be a problem?”

Right, because he was a _werewolf_.

“No, it’s… come in.” Ace pushed himself up into a sitting position and clutched the sheet in his lap.

Stiles nodded and entered the room. Derek followed close behind him and shut the door.

Ace openly stared at Derek, who was up on his feet and walking around like the last few days hadn’t even happened. He’d changed into clean clothes at some point, and it may as well have been Derek’s doppelganger who was in that cell with Ace, because the Hale before him looked unscathed.

When Derek noticed the scrutiny and lifted his eyebrows in silent question – see, Ace was getting better at the browspeak – Ace said, “You don’t look like you have a scratch on you.”

Derek cast a glance at Stiles, almost a ‘so we’re doing this?’ look, before responding. “We heal much faster than humans do.”

“Right.” Ace chewed on his lip and looked between Stiles and Derek. He was at a loss for what to say. “You missed Laura.”

“No, we didn’t. She’s down in the cafeteria with Aaron.”

“Is she okay?”

Stiles hesitated. “She’s worried about how you might see her now.”

Ace hated that she was upset and it was his fault. “She didn’t even let me say anything. Not really. Just dropped the werewolf bomb and left.”

Derek grunted and moved closer to his husband, standing so closely behind Stiles’ shoulder that they had to be touching. Ace wondered if Derek was keeping Stiles between them for Ace’s sake. “Sometimes humans freak out when they learn the truth… she was just trying to give you space. She didn’t want you to feel like you were cornered.”

“By _Laura_ ,” Ace stressed, just to point out the ridiculousness of that statement.

“By _a werewolf_ ,” Derek countered, refusing to let Ace ignore the hairy truth.

Ace huffed in frustration.

“Look,” Stiles interrupted their quasi-argument, “we know this is a lot to take in. No one’s going to begrudge you taking some time to get used to it. And if you want to talk, or ask questions, or just have a good old-fashioned freak out… I’ve been in your shoes before. Every thought or doubt or feeling you’re having, I’ve probably had it, too. So feel free to lay it on me. I won’t judge. Let me be your Ben Kenobi to lycanthropy.”

Ace stole a glance at Derek without thinking.

Stiles caught it. “Would you feel more comfortable if Derek left?”

That sounded like exacerbating the problem. “ _No_ , I wouldn’t be more comfortable if Derek left. I don’t want _anyone_ to leave. I didn’t want _Laura_ to leave. I just want everyone to stop acting like I’m going to flip out.”

Stiles gave him a pointed look. “Well, are you?”

It was probably a valid question, all things considered. Ace narrowed his eyes at Stiles. “You know what I’ve been thinking?” At Stiles’ ‘go on’ gesture, Ace said, “Laura has always _been_ a werewolf. Every date we went on, all the time we spent together, she was a werewolf. I just didn’t know it. So why would knowing change anything? I loved her when I didn’t know, why wouldn’t I love her when I do? Who she is hasn’t changed. Everything is _exactly the same_ except now I know what she has always been.” And if he broke up with her for _that_ , well shit, that made him an _asshole_. Or maybe racist? He wasn’t sure exactly how that worked.

Stiles stepped forward and sat on the edge of the bed. Derek, no doubt deliberately, hung back and kept his distance.

“That might be what you _think_ , but how do you _feel_ about it?” Stiles waited a beat before he continued. “You’re right, of course. Laura’s no different. But you are, just for knowing what she is. You’re talking about being in a relationship with someone who _isn’t human_. Can you handle that?”

Ace lowered his eyes, pensive. He thought about Laura’s visit earlier… about the things she said, the way she behaved. “Laura acted like I was going to see her as a monster.”

Stiles winced silently and threw a glance toward his husband. Derek moved to the window across from Ace’s bed as he said darkly, “That’s how this usually goes for us.”

That made Ace’s blood boil. “Well, _fuck that_.” The outburst made Derek and Stiles both stop and look at Ace. “I’m in a hospital, and _werewolves_ didn’t put me here. _Humans_ did.” When he thought about what his own kind had done to him, it kind of made him sick.

“When you’re a part of this,” Stiles said, gesturing toward Derek as representative of werewolves, “you see the worst mankind has to offer. It’s not pretty. You have to ask yourself if you can deal with that, too.”

Ace regarded Stiles a moment then looked over at where Derek was standing. Derek looked rock-solid, like the hardship that was his life was just a fact and the only way to face it was head-on. Derek had to be unflinching, fearless, if he wanted to protect his family. Ace couldn’t imagine the battles Derek had fought for his husband and children, but he had an idea from the fire in Derek’s eyes.

But Derek was the werewolf… he didn’t have an out. He endured the trials and tribulations because he had no choice.

“If you had the choice,” Ace asked Stiles, “would you have done anything differently?”

Stiles smiled. “Not a damn thing.”

From his place beside the window, Derek looked toward his husband. A look that could only be described as pure love replaced the grumpy exterior Ace had come to know so well in the Hale patriarch. Ace didn’t have to ask to know Derek would give the same answer.

“Is it harder?” Stiles asked rhetorically. “Yeah. Most relationships don’t have to deal with hunters and full moons and packs. That all meant I had to love Derek more. And sometimes I was afraid I’d reach a point where I didn’t have enough love to throw at all the hard times. I was scared I would let Derek down. He’s had more heartbreak in his life than anyone should have to live through, and I didn’t want to be another thing he had to mourn.”

Derek broke from his spot by the window and moved closer to Stiles a few steps before he jolted to a stop and looked toward Ace. He was obviously trying to stay back for the human’s sake, but he wanted to go to his husband so badly.

Stiles kept talking, undeterred. “But every time something tested us, I just kept loving him more. No matter what came at us, I loved him more. Even when I thought I had nothing left, I loved him even more. Eventually, I stopped thinking the world could tear us apart. And _that_ … that’s fucking amazing.”

Derek looked like he wanted to pull Stiles into him, wrap him up in his arms, and keep him there forever. He looked like the distance between the two of them was miles instead of feet. The longing on Derek’s face made Ace feel like a heel, because that distance existed because of _him_ , and it _wasn’t fucking necessary_.

Annoyance flared and words came out. “Would you stop skulking around like I’m going to hyperventilate if you get within three feet of me and just come over here?”

The outburst seemed to surprise everyone in the room. It definitely surprised Ace, who assumed his nads of steel were only for extreme hostage situations. Stress-induced bravery. But apparently not, because he’d just let loose some serious sass on Laura’s scary – and, oh yeah, actual _werewolf_ – father.

Crap.

He may have survived the hunters just to die anyway. And in a hospital, too. Oh, the irony.

Derek blinked.

Stiles just laughed. “He has your number, Derek.” Derek scowled as he approached while Stiles corrected, “And the word you’re looking for is _creep_. Derek’s the biggest creeper to ever creep. Although lurk works, too.”

Ace would argue that was a po-tay-to/po-tah-to kind of distinction, but he let it slide.

“Shut up, both of you,” Derek grumbled, but he seemed content to finally step up behind Stiles and lay a hand on his shoulder. Stiles leaned back into Derek’s body, resting his head on Derek’s abdomen. He was the picture of contentment to Derek’s perpetual low-grade surly.

On the surface, they didn’t seem like a couple that should work, but they _did_. And didn’t that prove beyond a doubt that a human and a werewolf could be happy together? Any doubt Ace might have about him and Laura on the basis of species was blown apart just from looking at her parents. The pairing was possible. If Ace and Laura couldn’t do it, that wasn’t because humans and werewolves couldn’t be a couple. It would be because Ace failed.

“Being loved by a werewolf is intense,” Stiles conceded. “I don’t know if humans are even capable of loving that wholly and selflessly.”

“You do,” Derek murmured.

“I try.” Stiles turned his head to press his cheek against Derek’s hand. Derek flipped his hand over and ghosted his fingers against Stiles’ jaw while Stiles pressed a kiss into Derek’s palm.

Seriously, _so good_ together.

“Human to human, Ace, it’s scary. It’s feeling like you can never love them back as much as they love you. But if you’re up for giving them all the love humanly possible and still needing to give them even _more_ –and _trying your best to do it_ – then hell yeah, it’s worth it.”

Stiles sucked at romance _his ass_. Derek’s eyes looked kind of misty, like it was the most moving thing Stiles had ever uttered. Which was believable, because _holy shit_.

“Umm, wow…” Ace stared, slack-jaw. “Am I crazy that I think that sounds _awesome_?”

Stiles grinned. “Maybe… but maybe it takes a special kind of crazy to love a werewolf.”

Ace gave a breathy chuckle.

Ever the wet blanket of others’ joy, Derek joined the conversation. “Speeches aside, you can’t take this lightly. Werewolves mate for life. You can’t decide to go through with this if you’re not all-in, because Laura will never take another mate if she chooses you.”

“If she hasn’t already,” Stiles muttered, too smart by half.

Ace blushed and looked down at his hands. “She kinda… said something like that… umm…”

Derek looked concerned. Stiles just squared his shoulders. “You can’t let that sway you. She would be better off alone than in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love her.”

“ _I love her_.”

“Enough?” Stiles countered.

It was a fair question. They were telling him he had to be ready to commit to a lifelong relationship with Laura or end it. That _should_ terrify him, but apparently being beaten and kidnapped put everything else in perspective, because it wasn’t paralyzing him with fear to think about forever. And it made sense, really. If he was going to be with a _werewolf_ … well, that didn’t sound like the kind of thing you did half-ass.

So he had to decide. All or nothing. Laura forever or never Laura.

The bottom line was he could not fathom turning his back on Laura and walking away from her. He couldn’t leave her behind. Whatever he did with the rest of his life, he wanted her there with him. Maybe that was enough. 

“Probably not,” Ace answered, “but I’m damn well going to _try_.”

Stiles beamed proudly. “Atta boy.”

Ace threw back a hopeful smile… a smile that slipped when he risked a look up at Derek. Derek had always been the hard sell in the Hale family. While Stiles had been ready to give Ace the benefit of the doubt, Derek had been a brick wall to his daughter’s suitor from day one.

But Derek just stood there.

“You’re not going to threaten me?” Ace asked.

One of Derek’s eyebrow rose. “No.”

Stiles twisted to look over his shoulder at his husband. “Really?” Even Stiles sounded kind of surprised by that.

“I’ve seen this kid under pressure. He’s strong. And he’s loyal.” Derek kind of winced. “In fact, in stressful situations, he’s an awful lot like _you_.”

“Awww,” Stiles cooed.

“That’s not necessarily a _good thing_. You’re both a couple of idiots.”

Ace squawked indignantly.

Stiles laughed. “Derek means that with love.”

“I do _not_. You both need to take lessons on running when told to run.”

If Ace had done that, he would have ditched Laura and hightailed it back to Stanford on the first day of his stay with the Hales. If it was all the same to Derek, Ace wasn’t going anywhere.

Stiles asked, “Would you like us to go find Laura and send her back in?”

Ace hoped to hell he wasn’t blushing, but he was pretty sure he was anyway. “Yeah.”

“Just as well, Laura’s probably chewing through the cafeteria table anyway,” Stiles teased as he nudged Derek back a step so he could get off the bed.

Then Ace remembered something. “Oh! Wait.”

“Yeah?” Stiles turned to look back at Ace while Derek quietly interlaced fingers with his husband’s hand.

“Umm… this might sound kind of crazy…” Ace huffed an aborted laugh when he considered the rest of the conversation they’d just had, “I don’t even know if I trust my memory at this point, but when you came in to rescue us last night…” Ace braced himself. Might as well just out and say it. “Are you a Jedi?”

Stiles looked baffled for a second, then understanding flared, he threw back his head, and _laughed_.

Well, that seemed a little rude. Ace thought it was a perfectly legitimate question.

“Nah, son, I’m no Jedi.”

“Okay.” Ace frowned. “Because I could swear I saw you do something that looked very Skywalkery. Or did I hallucinate that?”

Stiles smirked. “No, you didn’t.”

“Okay.” Ace waited expectantly. Stiles, the shit, was just watching him with this smug look on his face and providing no further information. “Okay, so what _are_ you?”

“I’m human.”

“Bullshit.” Ace might not have a clue about all this werewolf stuff and how any of it worked, but he knew humans couldn’t do what Stiles did in that cell. A wave of a hand did _not_ summon wind like a freaking airbender.

“Let’s just say,” Stiles finally answered _usefully_ , “that if Hogwarts was a real place, I totally would have gotten a letter when I was a kid.”

“ _You’re a wizard_?!” Ace shrieked in a voice about three octaves higher than his normal register. Seriously. He might have pulled something.

“Sadly,” Stiles sighed dramatically, mournfully, “that title hasn’t caught on with the pack.”

Ace couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“Because ‘wizard’ makes people think of Merlin and magic tricks and wands, and you’re no Merlin,” Derek muttered.

“I do a pretty neat disappearing trick with _your_ wand,” Stiles countered cheekily. “I don’t see you complaining about _that_.”

God damnit, could those two be in the same room together for more than ten minutes without the conversation degenerating into innuendos and flirting? Ace tried to clear his throat pointedly and in a manly fashion, but his larynx seized (probably from screeching a second ago) and it came out high-pitched and reedy. Oh well, it got their attention just the same.

Stiles and Derek both stopped and looked down at Ace. They didn’t even look apologetic about shamelessly flirting at his hospital bedside, the bastards.

“There are things you still don’t know about this family,” Stiles said in all seriousness. “But don’t worry. You will.” Then he winked and herded Derek out of the room.

Ace was coming to terms with the fact he would just have to accept a high degree of weirdness in his life from here on out.

*********

Ace was alone with his decision only a short while before there was a soft knock on the room door. He looked over and Laura eased it open a crack to peek in at him. She looked equal parts hopeful, nervous, and scared. From that alone, Ace gathered that Derek and Stiles had not given Laura any indications either way about how Ace would go.

“Hi. Can I come in?”

“I don’t know. If I say ‘no’, are you going to huff and puff and blow the door down?”

Something twitched in Laura’s face, visceral yet undecided and settling on a look like she’d just swallowed a lemon whole as she slipped into the room and leaned back against the door to close it behind her. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Ace contended.

“He’s the big _bad_ wolf, you know.”

“I suspect that story was told from the point of view of the pigs. Hardly an unbiased opinion. Of course it’s a bad wolf if you ask the _bacon_.”

Laura snorted and pushed off from the door only to stop a pace away and stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Dad and Pop said you wanted to see me.”

“Yeah… uh. Listen, Laura… I’ve given it some thought, and –”

“It’s okay,” Laura said lowly, shoulders drooping.

“What?”

Laura gave him a pained smile. “You’re not ready for this. That’s okay. I get it. You have the choice to have a normal, safe life. That’s not what I can give you and I know that. I should never have put you in this position.”

“Laura…”

“Just… know that I never meant to hurt you.”

“Laura…”

“And I love you. If we can still be friends, that… I’d like that. But I understand if you can’t do that, either. Might be better for you, actually. A clean break from us, sever all connections. That…” Laura grimaced at the thought. “Yeah, that’s probably better.”

“ _Babe_.”

Laura’s jaw clicked shut and she blinked at him.

For all the times Ace had a thousand words to woo his Halen of Troy, suddenly none of them seemed like enough. Because his waxing poetic about epic romance was grounded in classical fiction, and this was _real_. To reduce this moment to dactylic poetry would somehow seem cheap. He so often used history and literature like a shield, a crutch, but it would not do to use them here and now. This had to come from _him_ , not Homer. Not Byron or Keats or Shakespeare or Coleridge or (yes, the irony did not elude him) Thoreau.

And the truth of the matter was, when he was reduced to just himself, Laura left him tongue-tied. He understood better what Stiles meant when he talked about Derek’s effect on him.

So maybe he wasn’t about to launch a thousand ships for her, but he _was_ ready to face a life of danger to be with her. Real, genuine ‘I already got kidnapped to prove it’ risk for the sake of her. He might not be facing armies, but he would face werewolves and hunters and whatever else came with that for Laura Hale.

Laura was still standing there, watching him in mounting worry the longer his silence dragged.

Without uttering a sound, Ace held up one side of the sheet in invitation.

Sorrow cracked wide open with a grin and the sun shined through. Laura exhaled, almost laughed, and quickly crossed the distance to climb onto the narrow bed with Ace and curl against him. She wrapped her arm around his chest, pillowed her head on his shoulder, and snuggled in close. Ace put his arms around her and pulled her tighter against him, and it finally felt like everything was going to be all right.

Come what may, this was the right decision. Screw safe and normal. Neither held a candle to Laura Hale.

“I was _sure_ you wouldn’t want this once you knew the truth…”

“I am getting really tired of Hales underestimating me.”

Laura made an amused noise in the back of her throat and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. Her hand found his bicep, slipping under the hospital gown to find skin, and the last traces of pain from his headache melted away. Was that Laura? Could she actually be magic? Did she somehow get that gift from Stiles? Was that even possible? There was so much he had to learn if this was going to be his new normal. And, man, how he wanted it to be.

Ace propped his chin on top of her dark head and combed his fingers through her hair. “We still have a lot to talk about.”

“I know. We will. No more secrets, I promise.”

“Good. Because I have a lot to learn. Like, what about full moons? Are you _literally_ going to rip my head off if I ask you if it’s _that time of the month_?” he asked jokingly.

Laura snorted. “I haven’t so far, and lucky for you every wall and desk calendar has the full moons marked. You should invest in one.”

Yes, absolutely. First thing he was doing when he got a new phone was setting an alert for all the full moons for the next _year_. He had a feeling it was kind of a big deal to know the lunar cycle in the Hale family.

“It’ll be okay,” Laura soothed. “I’ll teach you everything.”

“I’m counting on you to.”

Laura hummed.

After a quiet moment cuddling, Ace said, “Your parents are still terrifying, by the way. Even _more_ terrifying now, actually.”

Laura mumbled affirmatively.

“And we are definitely having a conversation about the fact your dads are Professor Lupin and Harry Potter.”

Laura burst into peals of laughter.


	13. Chapter 13

Because of Ace’s stint in the hospital, they ended up staying in Beacon Hills a day longer than they originally intended to, but come Monday morning they were packing up the car to drive back to Palo Alto. All things considered, they could afford to miss one day of classes.

Ace had a new phone and he’d texted his parents that he was fine – he hadn’t decided yet what he was going to tell them about what happened during his spring break. Should he omit it completely or tell some version of the truth? Hell, maybe he’d even go with the ‘Laura and I were jumped by thugs’ story; there was an official police report on record to back up that tale, anyway. He figured he had time to think about it. By the time summer rolled around and he saw his parents again, his head injury would be but a scar, and he could claim it had been anything – a busted beer bottle during a drunken brawl or any number of other mundane spring break shenanigans – that had caused it. Anything that he believably would have been embarrassed to admit to his parents until months after the incident. His mom and dad would be disappointed but hardly surprised. After all, crazy things happened during spring break.

Crazier than his parents could imagine.

Stiles and Derek were standing in front of the Hale house seeing them off. Aaron left for school earlier that morning, but not before giving Ace a hug that was not the least bit threatening. It was amazing what a difference a week could make.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you again, then,” Aaron had teased over breakfast, sliding a knowing look between Laura and Ace. Laura stuck her tongue out at her little brother like the mature adult she was.

“You bet your furry ass,” Ace replied.

Aaron smirked. “Good.”

The rest of breakfast had consisted of Laura sitting close enough to Ace to slide a hand over and touch him and Derek and Stiles seeming intent on psychologically scarring their children with how much the love was still alive in their marriage.

When Aaron excused himself from the table with a simulated gag to get his backpack and head out the door, Ace had one more thing to say to Laura’s brother. “Tell Sam it was nice to meet him.”

“I will,” Aaron answered with his head ducked to hide a blush.

“And may the gods have mercy on his soul,” Ace added in a dry monotone.

Aaron looked aggrieved, but everyone else laughed. Ace was being sincere. Sam seemed like a nice kid, but it was no easy thing to be brought into the Hale inner circle. He wasn’t sure if Sam would have the mettle for it, but if not him then someone would one day. Aaron was too decent a guy to be single forever. And Ace would feel acute empathy for whoever Aaron tried to bring into the fold.

The pack had been over Sunday night for a farewell dinner, and it was a completely different experience from the barbeque inquisition at the beginning of the week. Clearly word got around to everyone that Ace was now part of the club, because they were all welcoming and warm. Except Jackson. Jackson was still a prick, but Ace had it on authority that was a flaw of Jackson’s personality and nothing to do with Ace. Everyone else was as friendly as Scott had been the first time.

Ace wasn’t really certain _how_ he fit in with the pack yet, but at least they were more receptive. The fact that Ace had risked his life for the pack’s alpha probably got him in their good graces. If they wanted a declaration, that had definitely been one, and it was decidedly pro-werewolf.

The dinner party had been pleasant, and Ace felt like he was one of them. It was his first real taste of what it really meant to be part of the pack, and it was kind of a head rush (though that might be the meds Grammccall discharged him with, too). He wasn’t sure if he was pack now. He was too shy to ask. Was there some kind of ceremony involved, or would it just be a casual ‘hey, you’re pack now, kid’ and that was it? Would he be given some kind of pin or leather jacket with ‘HALE’ written on the back to mark his induction? He had no idea. He’d ask Laura later.

Through the course of talking with pack members Sunday evening, Ace also added a few more things to the list of topics to discuss with Laura when they were alone and he wouldn’t sound like an idiot in front of _everyone_ ; e.g., banshees, kanimas, and emissaries. Seriously, it was like falling face-first into a Rowling novel hanging out with the Hales.

It had the potential to be all kinds of awesome.

“All right, that’s it,” Laura said as she slammed the trunk closed on her suitcase and rounded the car to approach her parents.

“Well, be careful driving back.” Stiles pulled Laura into a hug. “And text us when you get there.”

Seemed some things with parents were universal.

“I will,” Laura promised, leaning back from Stiles’ embrace just enough to practically brachiate to her other father like she had when they first arrived. Derek gathered his daughter into a crushing hug that lifted her off her feet. Laura squealed happily, like a little girl, like _daddy’s girl_ , and clung to Derek tighter.

Stiles came up alongside Ace. “I hate her leaving, too, but it really gets to them. Pack thing, you know? Leaving their territory, letting pack members go, goes against their instincts. It’s even stronger for alphas.” Stiles eyed Ace thoughtfully. “Odds are she’ll want to move back to Beacon Hills when she graduates to be close to the pack. You know, since it’ll be hers to lead one day.” At that, Stiles gave him a pointed look.

“I wouldn’t mind moving to Beacon Hills,” Ace mused aloud. It wasn’t what he’d imagined his future would look like when he started college, but on the other hand, it was hard to sneer at being the consort of a queen. “I think I could get used to this place.”

Stiles smiled, pleased with that answer. “Ace, it was a pleasure to meet you. Don’t be a stranger.” When Ace held out a hand for a hearty shake, Stiles hauled him into a surprise hug. “You’re welcome here anytime, son.”

“I… uh… thanks.” Ace stepped back from Stiles and turned to see that Derek was watching him closely. He’d finally put Laura down, daughter standing beside her father, and boy were those two cut from the same mold. Seeing them side by side, it was not hard to see how Laura would be an alpha someday. There was a grace and power in Derek that was echoed in Laura. A bearing of leadership, responsibility, and love too big to confine to one nuclear family. Only a pack would do.

When the time came, Ace would have to share her with all of the pack (even more than he did now). With _her_ pack. But sharing Derek didn’t seem to bother Stiles, so Ace was confident he could handle it, too. He couldn’t really ask Laura to give up her birthright. She was going to be the pack leader one day, and he knew she would wear that mantel well.

“Ace,” Derek nodded and held out his hand.

Ace stepped forward to take it, appreciative of the fact that Derek didn’t crush the bones in his hand just to prove that he could.

“Sorry for everything that happened to you,” Derek offered sincerely.

Ace gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Maybe it’s better it happened this way. Trial by fire, right?” No one could say that Ace didn’t know what he was getting into now. At the very least he had a damn good idea what it meant to love a Hale.

Derek’s lips twitched. “That does seem to be the Hale way.”

_Fire. Shit_. “I, uh, damnit… I didn’t mean to… _shit_ , sorry, I just…”

“I know what you meant. And you’re not wrong.” Derek dropped Ace’s hand and watched Laura step away from her father’s side and sidle up alongside Ace. “I’m glad Laura found her Stiles.”

“Okay, seriously, Derek,” Stiles groaned, “we are going to have to talk about you using me as a standard.”

Derek gave him an affectionately playful look. “You’re the gold standard of mates, deal with it.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “You know, I _want_ to be irritated at you, but you make it so hard.”

“Oh, _I know I do_.” The corners of Derek’s mouth upturned into a wicked grin.

Stiles waggled his eyebrows.

“Oh my god!” Laura yelped and tore away from Ace to stride toward the car. “Ace, come on, before my dads do it in the yard.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Stiles mumbled as he came up flush alongside Derek and looped an arm around his waist.

“ _Argh_! Ace!” Laura flung herself into the passenger seat and stuck her fingers in her ears.

Stiles chuckled and Derek, smiling, curled an arm around Stiles’ shoulders. It spoke of decades of intimacy, knowing each other’s bodies better than their own.

For all their terror-inducing talent, Ace really was a fan of Stiles and Derek as a couple.

“Well,” Ace took a step backward, “it was nice meeting both of you.”

Derek peered at Ace a second, then blurted, “You mean that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Stiles guffawed. “Son, you are perfect for Laura.”

Ace certainly hoped so.

He turned toward the car only to spin back around when Stiles said, “Ace?”

“Yeah?”

“Give some thought to taking the name ‘Hale’.”

A man more insecure in his masculinity might recoil at the very suggestion, but Ace understood why it was important. He’d heard the story about the Hales, what the family meant to the land and the town. He got why Stiles had taken his husband’s name, and why Stiles was asking Ace to consider doing the same.

That the request assumed Ace would marry Laura one day, accepted as a foregone fact instead of a mere possibility, was enough to put Ace on the moon.

Taking Laura’s name when they married would be one of the easier things he did for her. Ace Hale. He could live with that.

“I will.”

Laura, oblivious, sat in the car with her ears plugged humming to herself.

As they were driving away from the house, Derek and Stiles pressed against each other and waving in the rearview mirror like two mismatched arms from the same lumpy creature, Laura dropped her hands into her lap and turned to study her boyfriend.

“What?” Ace asked.

“I’m just _so sorry_ about everything that happened this week. This was the _worst_ spring break imaginable.”

“Not really. I didn’t end up on any ‘Girls Gone Wild’ DVDs, so that’s something.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “Joke all you want, but this would win some kind of award for shitty spring breaks. I know it sucked donkey dick, but I _promise_ I’ll make it up to you.” She reached over and squeezed his thigh just enough to let him know just _how_ she was going to make it up to him.

He was not going to turn down sex, but there was a point he wanted to make. “Laura, you can apologize if it’ll make you feel better, and I am _definitely_ down for the sex, but there’s _really_ no reason for you to feel guilty.” At her incredulous look, Ace continued, “The hunters weren’t your fault.”

“ _Kind of were_ ,” she muttered under her breath. “Fine, forget the hunters. My family was still brutal to you.”

Ace could not deny that. “Yeah, well, you still have to do the ‘meet the parents’ with my mom and dad, and if you don’t think that’s going to be excruciating, then you are _sorely_ mistaken. It’s going to be _horrific_. There will probably be home movies. _Brace yourself_.”

Laura’s laughter filled the car like music. Ace couldn’t help but smile at the sound. If he had his way, the rest of his life would play out to the soundtrack of her laugh.

“Ace, baby, I love you,” Laura said when she could breathe again.

“I love you, too.” Even though she was a werewolf. Maybe even more because she was a werewolf. There was something wild and beautiful about Laura Hale, and Ace got to hold it in his arms and love it. He got to love _her_.

He could do this. He was so fucking game.

Bring on the werewolves.

 

END


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